News Archive

Mar 31st, 2010 14:58 Discuss (2 Comments)

World leading flash manufacturer Silicon Power announced today, the Tough Marine Warrior- Armor A70 Portable Hard Drive. Like previous Armor series of products, the Armor A70 is in compliance with US military grade MIL-STD-810F 516.5 procedure IV (Transit drop test). In addition to its abilities to withstand most shock and vibration forces, it is also in compliance with IEC529 IPX7 waterproof tests! The test places the Armor A70 one meter under water for 30 minutes and yet, upon retrieving A70 submersion, it is not affected in any way and is still fully operation. Passing the two rugged tests mentioned above, the Armor A70 also features dust and pressure-proof characteristics. It is rock-solid inside and out just like a well trained military marine.

The water, pressure, vibration, shock and dust proof Armor A70 is perfect for people constantly on the move. It is ready for any unexpected situations such as rain, liquid-spillage or accidental drops. It is the best companion for an ultimate road warrior! It is designed with a delicate cable storage mechanism to better support its plug and play functionality.

XFX Release 2GB Eyefinity 6 Radeon HD 5870

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Mar 31st, 2010 13:38 Discuss (31 Comments)

XFX today releases their first salvo from their Eyefinity 6 series - The new Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition - which facilitates massive visual real estate with the first-ever "wrap-around" 6 screen in-picture experience.

2 GB DDR5 memory
6 mini DisplayPort outputs
Connect up to 6 displays, Up to 2560 x 1600 per output
Supports up to 7680 x 3200 with 6 displays in Eyefinity

I will be leaving TPU!

Mar 31st, 2010 12:09 Discuss (869 Comments)

After all the drama in the comments section of our Fermi review, I realized that continuing with hardware reviews and this tech "scene" might not be what I want to do with my time in the future.

So I looked for options out of this mess, and found one, TPU will be operated by a different company in the near future, I will be leaving the site. But fear not, most of the staff will remain here, the site and forums will stay the same in the near future (months). However, I have no idea what's going to change in the long run but I'm sure it will be for the best.

Further info and a more detailed schedule will follow when I have a better idea what will happen with my software projects and other internals of the site.

More info here

Noctua Provides Free NM-A90 Upgrade-Kit for AMD Users

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Mar 31st, 2010 10:57 Discuss (8 Comments)

Noctua today announced the availability of the new NM-A90 Upgrade-Kit for NH-U12P SE2 and NH-U9B SE2 users. The upgrade makes it possible to install the heatsink turned by 90° on AMD motherboards. NH-U12P SE2 and NH-U9B SE2 users can order the NM-A90 kit free of charge on Noctua's website.

"We've received excellent customer feedback on our new SE2 coolers", says Mag. Roland Mossig, Noctua CEO, "but some AMD users expressed the wish to have the possibility to change the alignment of the coolers on AMD motherboards. We've always been convinced that premium quality products and premium quality service should go hand in hand, so we're responding to this demand by offering the new NM-A90 kit as a free upgrade."

New Intel Xeon 7500 Eight-Core Processor Pushes Mission Critical into the Mainstream

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Mar 31st, 2010 10:24 Discuss (10 Comments)

Intel Corporation today culminated the transition to the company's award-winning "Nehalem" chip design with the launch of the Intel Xeon 7500 processor series. In less than 90 days, Intel has introduced all-new 2010 PC, laptop and server processors that increase energy efficiency and computing speed and include a multitude of new features that make computers more intelligent, flexible and reliable.

Expandable to include from two to 256 chips per server, the new Intel Xeon processors have an average performance three times that of Intel's existing Xeon 7400 series on common, leading enterprise benchmarks, and come equipped with more than 20 new reliability features.

Thecus Technology Launches the N7700+ NAS Server

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Mar 31st, 2010 10:10 Discuss (0 Comments)

The 7-bay NAS is shaping up to be the go-to desktop NAS device for users who require both massive storage and blazing performance. Today, Thecus Technology is pleased to introduce the N7700+, a seven-bay storage server that retains all of the robust functionality of the N7700, but ups the ante with a PCIe x8 slot suitable for 10Gb Ethernet cards.

Thecus constantly engineers new ways to squeeze the maximum performance from existing technologies. The N7700+ one-ups its predecessor by including an internal PCIe x8 slot. Compared to the x1 slot found in the N7700, the N7700+'s PCIe slot offers up to eight times more bandwidth, which makes it perfect for 10Gb Ethernet cards. Outfitted with one of these cards, the N7700+ is fully compatible with the latest 10Gb networks, delivering unprecedented data transfer rates for the most demanding users.

SAPPHIRE Launches HD 5870 Eyefinity6 Edition Graphics Card

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Mar 31st, 2010 10:02 Discuss (0 Comments)

SAPPHIRE Technology has just announced an exciting new version of the highly acclaimed HD 5870 PC graphics accelerator featuring six outputs allowing six monitors to be used simultaneously - and supporting a variety of SLS configurations with ATI Eyefinity. The new SAPPHIRE HD 5870 Eyefinity6 edition is a 3D graphics accelerator with a single GPU and six mini Displayport outputs on the bracket. Any or all of these outputs can be connected to Displayport compatible monitors to give a choice of Eyefinity configurations to maximise gaming experience, enlarge work area for increased productivity or configure display areas for information or multimedia systems. The Eyefinity6 Edition is the first and only card in its class to support six monitors from a single graphics processor and delivers a stunning visual experience.

All of the SAPPHIRE HD 5870 series cards are based on the latest graphics architecture from the ATI division of AMD, the second generation of GPU to be built in its 40nm process. The first two Displayport outputs on the HD 5870 Eyefinity6 Edition can also be used with passive Displayport to DVI or Displayport to HDMI adapters (supplied) to connect alternative displays, including full support for audio over HDMI. The additional four ports can be connected to other displays using active adapters as an alternative to being connected directly to Displayport monitors.

PowerColor Expands the Virtual Universe with Radeon HD 5870 2GB Eyefinity6 Edition

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Mar 31st, 2010 09:55 Discuss (3 Comments)

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, today announces the first graphics solution which can support up to 6 monitors: the HD5870 Eyefinity 6. The HD5870 Eyefinity 6 features multi-display Eyefinity technology, enables up to six monitors to be operated from one card through its six mini displayport onboard design. This unique feature allows gamers to expand real estate and delivers incredible HD gaming.

The HD5870 Eyefinity 6 has an unparalleled 1600 stream processors and equipped with 2GB onboard memory, clocks in at 850MHz core speed and 1200MHz of memory speed, easily boosting PC's with nearly 3 teraFLOPs of computing power. It delivers the intense gaming performance and unrivaled image quality with lifelike 3D visual effects.

AMD Expands DirectX 11 Gaming by 12x HD Resolution with ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity6

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Mar 31st, 2010 09:48 Discuss (12 Comments)

Harnessing the world's most powerful graphics processor, AMD today introduced the ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition graphics card. Equipped with 2GB of GDDR5 memory, the ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 is the first graphics card capable of rendering in excess of 1 billion pixels per second in today's titles, unleashing PC game environments of unprecedented size and resolution. Enthusiast gamers now have access to a seamless, stunning perspective across six displays, enabling up to 12 times more resolution than 1080p HD.

"The ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition graphics card opens the door to a new era in personal computing," said Matt Skynner, vice president and general manager, AMD Graphics Division. "With the ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition, PC users get the ultimate panoramic computing experience in one powerful card. By bridging the innovation in ATI Eyefinity technology with broad ecosystem support, AMD is revolutionizing the PC visual experience."

Corsair Breaks PC Mark Vantage World Record Using Force Series Solid-State Drives

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Mar 31st, 2010 09:37 Discuss (1 Comment)

Corsair, a worldwide leader in high-performance computer and flash memory products, today announced that it has set a new world record score in PC Mark Vantage, using a performance PC powered by eleven Corsair Force Series F200 SSDs in a high bandwidth RAID configuration.

The World Record score of 32,947 was achieved by a Corsair-built system based around the Intel Core i7-980X six-core processor, cooled to sub-zero temperatures. The system was powered by a Corsair HX1000W PSU, 6GB of Corsair Dominator GTX2 memory, and eleven 200GB Force Series F200 SSDs. The recently-announced Force Series SSDs utilize the sophisticated SandForce SF-1200 SSD Processor to deliver unparalleled sequential and random read/write performance.

HIS Announces Radeon HD 5870 2GB Eyefinity6 Edition Graphics Card

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Mar 31st, 2010 09:28 Discuss (4 Comments)

Today HIS unleashes the revolutionary new HIS Radeon HD 5870 2GB GDDR5 Eyefinity 6 Edition. Start experiencing DirectX 11 gaming and HD entertainment with stunning ATI Eyefinity 6 displays capabilities, which delivers incredible scalability, productivity and immersive HD gaming performance.

Powered by the top-of-the-line 5870 GPU, HIS Radeon HD 5870 2GB GDDR5 accelerates PC gaming with up to 2.72 teraFLOPS computing power. Running at 850MHz core clock speed and 4.8Gbps memory clock speed, the, HIS Radeon HD 5870 ensure extreme game play at high resolutions and maximum settings. What's more? The immersive HD gaming experience is brought the next level by ATI Eyefinity6 Technology. This revolutionary multi-display technology allows you to expand your visual real estate across up to 6 displays with innovative "warp around" capabilities to maximum your field of view with incredible sharpness and clarity.

WD Leads in 2.5-inch Areal Density with New 750 GB Notebook Hard Drives

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Mar 30th, 2010 16:12 Discuss (25 Comments)

WD today announced that it is now shipping 750 GB of storage capacity in a standard-height 2.5-inch notebook hard drive -- the industry's highest capacity to date in this form factor. Designed for mainstream notebook computers, the WD Scorpio Blue 750 GB hard drives utilize WD's leading 375 GB-per-platter areal density and Advanced Format technology.

An ideal solution for notebook computers and other portable devices whose users require extreme capacities in a small package, extended battery life and cool, reliable operation, the WD Scorpio Blue 750 GB hard drive is also one of the quietest 2.5-inch drives on the market.

ASUS Releases its ENGTX400 Series Graphics Accelerators with VoltageTweak

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Mar 30th, 2010 15:59 Discuss (32 Comments)

Long awaited by hardcore gamers and overclockers in every part of the world, the latest generation of graphics processors from NVIDIA is finally here, and ASUS is the first to prepare and release fully-optimized products that build on its many new features to deliver total gaming frills and immersion.

The new graphics cards from ASUS deliver all the benefits of the debuting 40nm NVIDIA GPUs, possessing considerable power improvements compared to their predecessors. They come in two varieties in the initial launch. The flagship ENGTX480 uses the GTX480 core with 480 CUDA cores at 1401 MHz and a 384-bit memory interface. This is a frontline extreme performance board with a 700MHz core clock and 1536MB of 3696MHz GDDR5 memory. It's accompanied by ASUS' powerful mainline ENGTX470, which is a 448 CUDA cores running at 1215 MHz version of the NVIDIA GTX470 chip. It packs a 607MHz core and 1280MB of GDDR5 RAM at 3348MHz with a 320-bit interface.

Club 3D Rolls Out Radeon HD 5830 Overclocked Edition

Mar 30th, 2010 12:27 Discuss (14 Comments)

Club 3D released a new custom-design graphics card based on the ATI Radeon HD 5830 GPU, which comes overclocked out of the box. The card has clock speeds of 825 MHz (core) and 1050 MHz (memory, 4200 MHz effective), against reference speeds of 800/1000 MHz. The HD 5830 GPU packs 1120 stream processors, and a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface to connect to 1 GB of memory. Connectivity includes one each of DVI-D, HDMI, and DisplayPort. Club 3D did not disclose price, though we expect it to be a little over the base-model cards, around the US $240 mark.

Gigabyte Readies GA-890FXA-UD7 High-End AMD Motherboard

Mar 30th, 2010 09:24 Discuss (50 Comments)

Gigabyte is looking to share some of its latest innovations in motherboard design with its AMD platform lineup, with a new enthusiast-grade motherboard in the works that rivals up with some of the company's highest-end products from its Intel platform lineup. The GA-890FXA-UD7 is the newest in the league. The model stays above the recently revealed GA-890FXA-UD5. It is a socket AM3 motherboard geared up for AMD's newest six-core processors, based on AMD 890FX + SB850 chipset. It has six PCI-Express slots (electrical: x16/x8, x4, x8, x4, x16/x8, x8), and supports 4-way ATI CrossFireX. The CPU is powered by a 10-phase VRM, with 2-phase memory VRM.

For the first time on the AMD platform, Gigabyte uses its Hybrid Silent-Pipe cooler. The cooler connects the CPU VRM, 890FX northbridge, and SB850 southbridge using a heatpipe, and the heatsink over the northbridge has provision for a water-block (included), or a large and complex aluminum heatsink that fits into the top expansion slot. The SB850 natively supports six SATA 6 Gb/s ports complete with RAID 0,1,5,10 support. An additional GSATA2 controller gives out two SATA 3 Gb/s ports and the IDE connector. Connectivity includes 8+2 channel HD audio with optical and coaxial SPDIF connectors, two gigabit Ethernet controllers, two USB 3.0 ports, a number of USB 2.0 ports, and FireWire. It is expected to be out in a month.

Toshiba Introduces the Canvio: A Pocket-sized One Terabyte Backup Solution

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Mar 30th, 2010 08:52 Discuss (5 Comments)

According to new research, Americans worry more about losing their digital valuables, such as family photos, home videos and important documents, from a computer crash than having a wallet lost or stolen and being audited by the IRS. In response, Toshiba today introduced the Canvio Portable Hard Drive product line, an easy-to-use computer backup solution with up to one terabyte (TB) of storage capacity to protect the enormous amounts of digital content Americans are creating and storing on home computers.

According to the recent survey conducted by Impulse Research and sponsored by Toshiba, 70 percent of Americans have lost some type of data on their computers. The vast majority (89 percent) of consumers are aware of the importance of regularly backing up their computers to avoid losses; however, most (57 percent) never back up or only do it when they think of it. A leader in delivering mobile storage products to consumers, as well as to computer and consumer electronics manufacturers, Toshiba designed and introduced the Canvio Portable Hard Drive to help consumers make protecting their digital memories an uncomplicated and regular practice. The Canvio appeals to consumers with diverse digital comfort levels - it's easy to use with simple plug-and-play operation for novices and offers customizable options for tech-savvy users.

Sharkoon FireGlider Mouse Now in Black Edition

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Mar 30th, 2010 08:37 Discuss (5 Comments)

Still fresh from CeBIT and now on the market: Sharkoon's gaming mouse FireGlider is now available in a Black edition. For gamers who prefer a more unobtrusive design for their playing device, Sharkoon has replaced the flamboyant flame decoration with a soft skin black surface.

The characteristics remain the same: The Sharkoon FireGlider Black Gaming Laser Mouse comes with an ergonomically shaped body, six programmable buttons, and weight regulation options. The gripping surface provides a non-slip soft texture and the ribbed thumb impression ensures a secure hold even in sweaty situations. The engaged ADNS-6010-Sensor operates at a maximum resolution of 3600 DPI, a frame rate of 7080 fps, and can implement accurate accelerations up to 20 G. The sampling installation remains in six stages from 600 to 3600 DPI, and a LED indicates the selected DPI level color. Ultra-quiet Teflon-feet ensure smooth movements even on hard materials.

XFX Abandons GeForce GTX 400 Series

Mar 30th, 2010 05:54 Discuss (199 Comments)

XFX is getting cozier with AMD by the day, which is an eyesore for NVIDIA. Amidst the launch of GeForce GTX 400 series, XFX did what could have been unimaginable a few months ago: abandon NVIDIA's high-end GPU launch. That's right, XFX has decided against making and selling GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470 graphics cards, saying that it favours high-end GPUs from AMD, instead. This comes even as XFX seemed to have been ready with its own product art. Apart from making new non-reference design SKUs for pretty-much every Radeon HD 5000 series GPU, the company is working on even more premium graphics cards targeted at NVIDIA's high-end GPUs.

The rift between XFX and NVIDIA became quite apparent when XFX outright bashed NVIDIA's high-end lineup in a recent press communication about a new high-end Radeon-based graphics card it's designing. "XFX have always developed the most powerful, versatile Gaming weapons in the world - and have just stepped up to the gaming plate and launched something spectacular that may well literally blow the current NVIDIA offerings clean away," adding "GTX480 and GTX470 are upon us, but perhaps the time has come to Ferm up who really has the big Guns." The move may come to the disappointment of some potential buyers of GTX 400 series, as XFX's popular Double Lifetime Warranty scheme would be missed. XFX however, maintains that it may choose to work on lower-end Fermi-derivatives.

Inno3D Readies First ''Non-Reference'' GeForce GTX 470 Graphics Card

Mar 29th, 2010 13:18 Discuss (30 Comments)

Inno3D seems to be in a bit of a hurry to bag the title of "first to come out with a non-reference GeForce GTX 400 graphics card," and is working tirelessly to get there. The company is readying a new "non-reference" graphics card, put in quotes because for the most part it is in fact a reference design. Traditionally, NVIDIA disallows its board partners from designing their own non-reference graphics cards based on newly-launched high-end GPUs, with a few concessions made for designs with factory-fitted water-blocks, or minor cosmetic changes, apart from letting their own sticker design, box design, bundle, and to an extant, pricing.

Inno3D's concession comes in the form of two things: 1. an NVIDIA reference-design PCB, which is now green instead of black, and 2. looking at the pictures, possibly a different cooler shroud design, although internally the cooling assembly remains reference design. Inno3D may roll out graphics cards with reference NVIDIA clock speeds, and also those with higher clock speeds. As with every other GTX 470 made so far, Inno3D's card is based on the GF100 GPU, it is DirectX 11 compliant, packs 448 CUDA cores, and 1.25 GB (1280 MB) of GDDR5 memory across a 320-bit wide interface. It supports 3-way SLI. At this point, there is no word on when exactly the card comes out, or pricing.

Thermalright Makes its Popular VGA Coolers Fermi-Ready

Mar 29th, 2010 12:44 Discuss (4 Comments)

Thermalright is said to be working on a bolt-through kit (BTK), the GF 100 VGA BTK, that lets popular existing VGA heatsinks by the company to support the NVIDIA GF100 GPU, on GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470 graphics cards. The Thermalright Spitfire, HR-03 GT and HR-03 GTX heatsinks will be able to make use of the new BTK. The company is also said to be working on two new VRM heatsinks that are tailor-made for the reference PCBs of the two cards, the VRM GTX 480, and VRM GTX 470. These allow existing users of the above three heatsinks, and people looking to buy them some future-proofing. The GF 100 VGA BTK, VRM GTX 480 and VRM GTX 470 will be released in the weeks to come.

PowerColor Readies Overclocker-Friendly Radeon HD 5770 PCS++ Graphics Card

Mar 29th, 2010 11:35 Discuss (16 Comments)

PowerColor is working on a new Radeon HD 5770 graphics card that's geared for overclocking, the HD 5770 PCS++. The new model, while retains the same out of the box clock speeds and cooling as the HD 5770 PCS+, uses a redesigned PCB with high-grade VRM for higher overclocking potential. It has out of the box clock speeds of 875/1225 MHz (core/memory), against reference speeds of 850/1200 MHz. The ATI Radeon HD 5770 GPU packs 800 stream processors, and connects to 1 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 128-bit wide memory interface.

The PowerColor HD 5770 PCS++ borrows its PCB design from the PowerColor HD 5750 Go! Green, (HD 5750 and HD 5770 are based on the same Juniper GPU and are hence pin-compatible) which we recently reviewed. To do away with the 6-pin auxiliary power connector, the Go! Green card relied on a high-efficiency digital PWM circuit with three vGPU and two vMem phases, driven by a Volterra VT1165 voltage controller which supports software voltage control. From the looks of it, the PCS++ reuses the same PCB, but with the 6-pin power connector in place for added power. Despite the lack of this connector, and having passive cooling, the Go! Green card managed GPU and memory overclocks of 10% and 25%, making us expect even higher with this card. Its cooling system includes a GPU cooler made by Arctic Cooling, with independent heatsinks over the memory and VRM chips. It is expected that PowerColor prices the HD 5770 PCS++ at 10 EUR / 15 USD higher than the HD 5770 PCS+, which is around US $170.

Thermaltake Introduces the Element V NVIDIA Edition Case Certified for Next-Gen GPUs

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Mar 29th, 2010 10:53 Discuss (12 Comments)

Thermaltake, the world's leading brand in performance PC chassis, high-efficiency power supply and innovative computer peripherals for PC Do-It-Yourself market, is proud to announce its collaboration with NVIDIA to design and engineer the new Element V NVIDIA Edition chassis, which is certified for the next-generation of ultra-high performance graphics cards, including the just announced NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 GPUs.

"NVIDIA shares Thermaltake's commitment to ensure the enthusiast community receives the best possible products that solidify the PC as the best gaming platform, period," said Tom Petersen, technical director at NVIDIA. "Through collaboration with Thermaltake's leading engineers, we are excited that the Thermaltake Element V NVIDIA Edition is capable of providing an awesome gaming environment for our next generation of enthusiast graphic cards, including GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470, running in 2-way, 3-way, or even Quad SLI. Put simply, it rocks!"

Samsung First to Begin Shipping 40nm-class, 32-Gigabyte Memory Module for Servers

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Mar 29th, 2010 10:30 Discuss (13 Comments)

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, announced today that it has begun shipping samples of the industry's highest-density memory module for server systems. The 32 gigabyte (GB) module has been designed for use in advanced servers, which require high-density and high-performance features at low-power consumption levels.

According to Soo-In Cho, president and general manager of Samsung Electronics Memory Division, "Samsung continues to set the pace in advanced memory for high-end server applications by offering 40nm-class 32GB memory modules to reach previously unattainable levels of system capacity.In just 10 months, Samsung has now secured the best competitive advantage with the broadest portfolio of 40nm-class DDR3 based memory solutions in the industry since the 40nm-class DRAM was first produced last July."

AMD Sets the New Standard for Price, Performance, and Power for the Datacenter

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Mar 29th, 2010 09:47 Discuss (34 Comments)

AMD announces availability of a new server platform featuring the world's first 8- and 12-core x86 processor for the high-volume 2P and value 4P server market. The AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform addresses the unmistakable needs of server customers today - workload-specific performance, power efficiency, and overall value - while delivering more cores and more memory for less money. Leading OEMs including HP, Dell, Acer Group, Cray, and SGI are introducing new systems based on this highly scalable and reliable platform.

"As AMD has done before, we are again redefining the server market based on current customer requirements," said Patrick Patla, vice president and general manager, Server and Embedded Divisions, AMD. "The AMD Opteron 6000 Series platform signals a new era of server value, significantly disrupts today's server economics and provides the performance-per-watt, value and consistency customers demand for their real-world data center workloads."

XFX Alters Radeon HD 5970 Black Edition Design

Mar 29th, 2010 08:59 Discuss (63 Comments)

First spotted at the CeBIT event, the XFX Radeon HD 5970 Black Edition 4 GB graphics card is taking a new shape with the company redesigning its cooler. The older design borrowed heavily from AMD's reference cooler design. Its CGI drawings were released to the press, although the real card with its older cooler was shown off at CeBIT. The HD 5970 Black Edition from XFX sports two AMD Cypress GPUs with 1600 stream processors each, 4 GB of GDDR5 memory across 2x 256-bit memory interfaces, clock-speeds on par with single-GPU Radeon HD 5870 (850/1200 MHz, core/memory), and added overclocking potential. It uses Eyefinity6 display outputs, to single-handedly run six full-HD displays, and multiple Eyefinity display groups.

"XFX have always developed the most powerful, versatile Gaming weapons in the world - and have just stepped up to the gaming plate and launched something spectacular that may well literally blow the current NVIDIA offerings clean away," said XFX, in a statement to Nordic Hardware. "GTX480 and GTX470 are upon us, but perhaps the time has come to Ferm up who really has the big Guns." XFX is targeting high-end consumers, the HD 5970 Black Edition is to be made in Limited Quantities, though available shortly. It is expected to be priced at US $1000.

Inno3D Rolls Out its GeForce GTX 480 / GTX 470 Graphics Cards

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Mar 29th, 2010 05:59 Discuss (9 Comments)

Inno3D is excited to announce the grand unveiling of the Inno3D GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470. The GTX 480 boasts an amazing 480 shader processors, a 384-bit interface to 1.5GB of onboard GDDR5 RAM, and clock speeds of 700MHz, 1,401MHz, and 1,848MHz for the core, shaders and memory, respectively - the GTX 470 has 448 SPs and with a 320-bit memory interface. GTX480/470 was redesigned from the ground up to deliver the best performance on DX11 - adding dedicated engines in the GPU to accelerate key features like tessellation.

Game performance and image quality has received a tremendous boost, enabling film-like geometric realism for game characters and objects. Geometric realism is central to the GTX480/470 architectural enhancements for graphics. In addition, PhysX simulations are much faster, and developers can utilize GPU computing features in games most effectively.

SPARKLE Announces GeForce GTX 480/470 Graphics Accelerators

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Mar 27th, 2010 08:59 Discuss (3 Comments)

SPARKLE Computer Co., Ltd., the professional VGA card manufacturer and supplier, today proudly announced the SPARKLE GeForce GTX 480/470 Graphics Cards, which are the most powerful single chip graphics cards on the planet for gaming and beyond. Packing in 3 billion transistors, double the CUDA cores of previous generation GPUs, a high speed GDDR5 memory interface, and full DirectX 11 support, the SPARKLE GeForce GTX 480/470 Graphics Cards are designed for groundbreaking graphics performance. With a revolutionary new scalable geometry pipeline and enhanced anti-aliasing capabilities, the SPARKLE GeForce GTX 480/470 Graphics Cards are the world's most powerful single GPU graphics cards solution, delivering up to 3 times faster performance than previous GTX 285 single GPU solutions.

With the power of GF100 GPUs, the SPARKLE GeForce GTX 480/470 Graphics Cards bring ultimate DX11 HD gaming experience to high-end gamers. The SPARKLE GeForce GTX 480/470 Graphics Cards place gamers in the center of the action and experience true DirectX 11 gaming cinema in extreme HD (2560x1600) resolutions-all enabled by GF100's revolutionary compute architecture, NVIDIA 3-way SLI technology, and incredible performance in the latest DX11 games including Dirt 2, Stalker:OCP, Alien VS. Predator, Metro 2033 and so on. With 1.5~3 times more performance than prior generation GPUs, the SPARKLE GeForce GTX 480/470 Graphics Cards tear through complex DirectX 10 environments and cinematic effects at blazing frame rates in extreme HD resolutions.

ZOTAC Unleashes Next-Generation Graphics Cards

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Mar 27th, 2010 08:30 Discuss (4 Comments)

ZOTAC International, the world's largest manufacturer of graphics cards, motherboards and mini-PCs in the channel, today unleashes the world's most powerful graphics cards capable of delivering a phenomenal gaming experience and unmatched processing power - the new ZOTAC GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470 graphics cards. The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470 graphics cards take gaming to uncharted levels with new Microsoft DirectX 11, 32x anti-aliasing, NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround and HDMI 1.3a technologies.

The new ZOTAC GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470 deliver exceptional performance and visuals with an enhanced unified architecture that features hundreds of programmable unified shaders ready to process all GPU needs for extreme high-definition 3D gaming and everyday tasks. The unified architecture combines with a large 1536MB frame buffer on the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 480 and 1280MB frame buffer on the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 470 to deliver high-quality details and breathtaking performance.

EVGA Unleashes Full-Fledged Lineup of GeForce GTX 400 Series Graphics Cards

Mar 27th, 2010 05:39 Discuss (26 Comments)

EVGA unleashed a lineup of graphics cards based on NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470 graphics processors, complete with overclocked, overclocker-friendly, and water cooling-ready models. While the air-cooled models retain NVIDIA's reference design, the Hydro Copper series models sport a full-coverage, copper-rich water-block made for EVGA by Swiftech. On the air-cooled offer are base-models for the GTX 480 and GTX 470 that use NVIDIA reference clock-speeds, and level-1 overclock (Superclocked / SC) models. The level-3 overclock (For The Win / FTW) only come under the Hydro Copper series, with no air-cooled FTW models. Details follow:

EVGA GeForce GTX 480 (015-P3-1480-TR): 700/1401/924 MHz, reference air-cooled, US $499.99
EVGA GeForce GTX 480 SC (015-P3-1482-AR): 725/1450/950 MHz, reference air-cooled, US $529.99
EVGA GeForce GTX 480 FTW Hydro Copper (015-P3-1489-AR): 750/1500/950 MHz, Hydro Copper water-block pre-fitted, US $649.99
EVGA GeForce GTX 470 (012-P3-1470-TR): 607/1215/837 MHz, reference air-cooled, US $349.99
EVGA GeForce GTX 470 SC (012-P3-1472-AR): 625/1250/850 MHz, reference air-cooled, US $369.99
EVGA GeForce GTX 470 FTW Hydro Copper (012-P3-1479-AR): 650/1300/950 MHz, Hydro Copper water-block pre-fitted, US $499.99

NVIDIA Announces the GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470 Graphics Cards

Mar 27th, 2010 01:50 Discuss (41 Comments)

NVIDIA finally released the graphics cards it made many wait for: the DirectX 11 compliant GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470. The two were unveiled at the PAX East gaming event, in the United States, as publications were allowed to post reviews right away. The two are based on the NVIDIA GF100 GPU, built on the 40 nm process. The higher-end GeForce GTX 480 packs 480 shader units (now referred to by NVIDIA as "CUDA cores"), branched geometry processing along with multiple tessellation units, and a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface to connect to 1536 MB (1.5 GB) of memory.

The GeForce GTX 470 is the more affordable part, it packs 448 CUDA cores, and a 320-bit GDDR5 memory interface to connect to 1280 MB (1.25 GB) of memory. Both models support new features by NVIDIA, such as CUDA 3.0, faster PhysX acceleration, Stereoscopic 3D, 3D Vision surround multi display technology, as well as support for OpenCL and DirectCompute 5.0. While the GeForce GTX 480 has a suggested retail price of US $499, the GTX 470 is suggested to be priced at $349, although final pricing set by board partners could vary. NVIDIA is initially making tens of thousands of these cards, which should be available worldwide a little after April 12th.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 Fermi Review

Review Graphics Cards

Today marks the release of NVIDIA's new GeForce Fermi architecture. After excruciating months of delays, NVIDIA has finally given the green light for their new products. The GeForce GTX 480 offers all the latest features like DirectX 11, Tesselation, gaming on multiple monitors and GPU computation. Did NVIDIA's new card manage to claim the throne?

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GeForce GTX 480 PCI-Express Scaling Review

Review Graphics Cards

NVIDIA's latest beast offers unprecedented performance to the enthusiast gamer. But it also requires massive amounts of data being fed to it to perform. That's why it is commonly expected that high-end graphics cards are crippled if the PCI-Express interface does not offer the maximum speed of x16 2.0. We test four different PCI-E configurations and their performance to shine light on this question.

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TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.4.0 Released, Packs Special Hardware Giveaway

Mar 26th, 2010 16:48 Discuss (40 Comments)

TechPowerUp today introduced version 0.4.0 of GPU-Z, the popular graphics-subsystem information and monitoring utility. The release comes in the midst of a number of new graphics processors from various vendors, and hence adds support for most of them. To begin with GPU-Z now supports NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480, GeForce GTX 470 GPUs (launched today), it adds voltage monitoring support for ATI Radeon HD 5750, ATI Radeon HD 5830, and MSI R5870 Lightning. It supports Intel "Pineview" Atom processors with embedded graphics processors. It correctly reads memory actual clock speeds for NVIDIA GPUs with GDDR5 memory interface, adds tooltip language support for Traditional Chinese and Albanian, and more standards-compliant method of calculating memory bandwidth.

With this release, ASUS and TechPowerUp team up for a special Hardware Giveaway, a simple form to fill, and you will stand a chance to win some epic pieces of hardware from ASUS' elite Republic of Gamers series. To participate, complete and submit a simple questionnaire in the "Hardware Giveaway" tab of GPU-Z 0.4.0. The giveaway is open to GPU-Z users of all nationalities, participation is free of charge. More details such as what prizes are up for grabs, and terms and conditions can be found in that tab.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.4.0

A complete list of changes (changelog) follows:

NVIDIA Preparing First Fermi-Derivative Performance GPU, GF104

Mar 26th, 2010 15:13 Discuss (36 Comments)

With the launch of GeForce GTX 400 series enthusiast-grade graphics cards based on the GF100 GPU being a stone's throw away, it is learned that work could be underway at NVIDIA to develop a new performance GPU as a successor to G92 and its various derivatives, according to 3DCenter.org, a German tech portal. Codenamed GF104, the new GPU targets performance/price sweet-spots the way G92 did back in its day with the GeForce 8800 GT and 8800 GTS-512, which delivered high-end sort of performance at "unbelievable" price points. The GF104 is a derivative of the Fermi architecture, and uses a physically down-scaled design of the GF100. It is said to pack 256 CUDA cores, 32 ROPs, 32 TMUs, and a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. The more compact die as a result could achieve high clock speeds, like G92 did compared to the G80.

GF104 is believed to form three SKUs to fill performance-thru-mainstream market segments, starting with the fastest GeForce GTS 450, GeForce GTS 440, and GeForce GTS 430 (likely name). Among these, the GTS 450 enables all of GF104's features and specifications, with well over 700 MHz core speed, 1500 MHz shader, and 1800 MHz memory. This part could be priced at around the 240 EUR mark, and target performance levels of the ATI Radeon HD 5830. A notch lower, the GTS 440 has all the hardware inside the GF104 enabled, but has around 20% lower clock speeds, priced over 160 EUR, under 180 EUR. At the bottom is the so-called GTS 430, which could disable a few of the GPU's components, with 192 CUDA cores, and 192-bit GDDR5 memory interface, priced under $150. The lower two SKUs intend to compete with the Radeon HD 5700 series. The source says that the new SKUs could be out this summer.

Victorinox Launches Un-Hackable Secure Pro USB drive

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Mar 26th, 2010 12:30 Discuss (36 Comments)

Victorinox, the family company behind the famed Swiss Army Knife, has launched a pioneering memory stick design at an event held at its European flagship store on London's New Bond Street. The device is, says the company, the most secure of its kind available to the public. It uses several layers of security including fingerprint identification and a thermal sensor - so that the finger alone, detached from the body, will still not give access to the memory stick's contents. The Victorinox Secure has also been made tamper-proof. Any attempt to forcibly open it triggers a self-destruct mechanism that irrevocably burns its CPU and memory chip.

Victorinox was so confident of its new product's elite security standards that it offered a £100,000 prize to a team of professional hackers if they could break into it during the two hours the launch event lasted. The money went uncollected. The event was attended by Victorinox's CEO Carl Elsener Jr. and the Victorinox Secure's designer Martin Kuster, a technology security specialist. "Life is becoming more digital every day," says Kuster. "And yet people do so little to protect their data. The world's most common password is '12345' - and even encryption can be broken given time."

ASUS Readies Latest Motherboards for Upcoming Six-Core Processors from AMD

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Mar 26th, 2010 12:11 Discuss (23 Comments)

ASUS today announced a full range of motherboards that are ready to support the upcoming six-core AMD Phenom II X6 processors to herald a new era in ultra-powerful personal computing. The AMD six-core processor-ready ASUS M4 Series motherboards deliver maximum performance on a mainstream platform. Joe Hsieh, General Manager of ASUS Motherboard Business, said, "Besides being ready to support six-core processors, the ASUS M4 Series gives users of every level the best performance and value with its Core Unlocker feature. This has received notable recognition from many of the world's top media organizations for delivering a phenomenal boost in performance." M4 Series motherboards with the exclusive Core Unlocker technology have also garnered global media accolades for being the best motherboard for AMD processors.

ASUS' M4 Series motherboard is ready for the AMD Phenom II X6 processors. To enable six-core CPU and achieve maximum performance, users simply need to update the BIOS of their existing M4 Series.

SilverStone Readies New Value Precision Series Case

Mar 26th, 2010 12:05 Discuss (22 Comments)

SilverStone is preparing a new value case, the Precision series PS05. This mid-tower ATX case measures 190 x 456.5 x 501.2 mm, with extensive use of plastic and SECC steel. The features are basic, including four 5.25" and two external 3.5" drive bays, a drive cage room for another four 3.5" drives, partly tool-free design, all-black interiors (though there are no windows), motherboard with hole to manage certain kinds of CPU coolers, and a ventilation system which includes fans and fan-slots for the front, rear, and top. There is an air inlet on the side-panel behind the motherboard tray. The PS05 is expected to go for 41.50€.

AMD First with OpenGL 4.0 Compliant Graphics Driver

Mar 26th, 2010 08:03 Discuss (51 Comments)

Shortly after the Khronos group announced the OpenGL 4.0, the newest version of the multi-platform graphics API, AMD is out with a preview graphics driver for its ATI Radeon, FireGL, FirePro, and Mobility Radeon graphics accelerators, which includes the OpenGL 4.0 ICD (installable client driver). The driver is available for Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Linux. OpenGL 4.0 is comparable and up to times with Microsoft's DirectX 11 API, it makes use of hardware features such as tessellation on the GPU, per-sample fragment shaders and programmable fragment shader input positions, 64-bit double precision floating point shader operations, etc., and has no restrictions on which later version of Windows it can run on. With OpenGL 4.0 for example, one can expect 3D graphics with the complexity comparable to DirectX 11 on Windows XP.

DOWNLOAD: ATI Catalyst OpenGL 4.0 Preview Driver for Windows 7/Vista, Windows XP, and Linux.

Walton Chaintech Rolls Out Industry's Optimum High-Speed Computing Platform

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Mar 26th, 2010 02:08 Discuss (18 Comments)

Walton Chaintech, one of the world's most well-known memory and storage device manufacturers, announces the availability of its latest memory clock that can reach a memory speed of 2400MHz. To address consumers' diversifying high-speed computing platform needs, this new clock is the industry's fastest computing clock with a transmission bandwidth of 19,200MB/sec per transmission. No more will users be restricted by memory bandwidth when faced with system overclocking, they will be able to maximize their computing systems' performance and potential.

The all-new APOGEE GT DDR3-2400 memory utilizes a 1.6V voltage and 9-11-10-27 timing operation process. Not only is this more powerful than many products currently in the market, different users' requests can be met as Walton Chaintech provides two-in-one KIT packs that are compatible with the widely-used dual-channel motherboards. Users do not have to worry about modular selection; system compatibility is enhanced because the KIT provides two types of capacities, 1GB x2 and 2GB x2, giving users more flexibility.

New Roadmap Shows AMD's Desktop Processor Portfolio for Rest of 2010

Mar 25th, 2010 17:41 Discuss (21 Comments)

A set of new slides by AMD to sections of the industry spills the beans on AMD's processor offer outlook for perhaps the rest of the year. It shows AMD to maintain focus on value-oriented models that etch away Intel's market share on grounds of price/performance, while the higher-end of the spectrum keeps up with the latest technologies including the industry-wide advent of the six-core processor era, as well as new power-state management technologies such as TurboCore, which steps up clock speeds of certain cores of the processors while powering down others, which the load is low or less-parallel.

Front-line processor lineups include the Phenom II X6, and Phenom II X4, including a new T X4 series that includes TurboCore support. AMD's transition towards these chips from the existing Deneb-based quad-core ones starts within this quarter lasting throughout Q2 and part of Q3 2010. It includes Phenom II X4 960T, a 3.00 GHz (3.40 GHz turbo) chip based on the Zosma die. It goes up with the Phenom II X6 1035T, a six-core chip clocked at 2.60 GHz (3.10 GHz turbo). A notch higher up is the Phenom II X6 1055T, clocked at 2.80 GHz (3.30 GHz turbo), which comes in 95W and 125W variants. At the top is the Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition, an overclocker-friendly chip that runs at 3.20 GHz (3.60 GHz turbo). A little later in Q3, AMD will add in the Phenom II X6 1075T, clocked at 3.00 GHz (3.50 GHz turbo).

Fujitsu Develops New NOR Flash Memory Macro

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Mar 25th, 2010 17:07 Discuss (3 Comments)

Fujitsu Microelectronics Limited today announced the development of new flash memory macro that enables NOR flash memory circuits to achieve high-speed read operations while operating at low power currents. The new flash memory macro is guaranteed to retain program data storage for 20 years, or 100,000 write/erase cycles for data storage, while improving access speeds by 2.5 times to 10 nanoseconds (10 ns), and reducing the required operating current per cell by two-thirds to 9 microamperes (9 µA), compared to Fujitsu's past technologies. This technology will be implemented in microcontrollers featuring embedded flash memory in automotive, industrial, and consumer electronics applications for which high speed, low current, and high reliability are all priorities, thus contributing to a reduction in the burden on the environment.

ASUS Prepares Pair of Calpella-based Mid-Range Notebooks

Mar 25th, 2010 17:01 Discuss (6 Comments)

ASUS is preparing two new Calpella platform-based mid-sized notebooks, 14-inch N82JV-VX020V and 16-inch N61JA-JX008V. Both notebooks are driven by an Intel Core i5 520M processor, aided by 4 GB of DDR3 memory, and with 500 GB of storage. Both models have screens with 1366 x 768 pixels resolution. Connectivity options are also similar: Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, USB 3.0, FireWire, and Bluetooth. A 6-cell battery is used on both models. The differences kick in with the 14-inch N82JV-VX020V having NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M 1GB graphics which makes use of NVIDIA Optimus technology to minimise power idle draw, while the 16-inch N61JA-JX008V goes all-out for performance with an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730 1GB graphics. The N61JA-JX008V and N82JV-VX020V are expected to reach Europe in mid-April, each costing 1049 EUR.

MSI XPower X58 Retail-Grade Motherboard Pictured

Mar 25th, 2010 12:52 Discuss (25 Comments)

MSI's newest high-end LGA1366 motherboard comes at a time when there are new offerings by several motherboard makers boasting of support for USB 3.0, SATA 6 Gb/s, and support for the Core i7 "Gulftown" six-core processors out of the box. Another feature is having more than four PCI-Express x16 slots, which is becoming a trend. The lure here is being able to run four graphics cards in multi-GPU, with enough expansion room left for a fifth graphics card for processing physics, and that ATI and NVIDIA have multi-head display technologies in the making. First pictured in late January, the XPower X58 is MSI's socket LGA1366 platform addition to the Big Bang series of high-end products. The production version has a cooling system which uses heatsinks over the CPU VRM areas and X58 chipset, which are connected by a thick 8 mm heatpipe which MSI refers to as "SuperPipe". The ICH10R southbridge is cooled by an independent, slightly larger heatsink.

On offer are six PCI-Express x16 slots, a strong CPU VRM driven by a 16-phase PWM circuit which draws power from two 8-pin power connectors and uses DrMOS chips and High-C capacitors, a 3-phase memory power circuit, overclocker-friendly features such as consolidated voltage measure points, OC Genie, OC Dashboard module, a voltage-measure kit called V-kit, and Easy OC DIP switch. While the ICH10R gives out six SATA 3 Gb/s ports, an additional controller gives two 6 Gb/s ports (colour-coded white). Audio is care of a bundled PCI-Express x1 audio card called the MSI QuantumWave that includes THX TruStudio PC Suite, and support for Creative EAX 5.0 HD. Connectivity includes dual gigabit Ethernet, two USB 3.0 ports next to a number of USB 2.0 ports, power-eSATA, FireWire, and a connector for the OC Dashboard module. The MSI XPower X58 should be released soon.

Creative Announces Sound Blaster World of Warcraft Wireless Headset

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Mar 25th, 2010 08:44 Discuss (18 Comments)

Creative Labs, Inc. today announced the Sound Blaster World of Warcraft Wireless Headset is now available at AAFES, Amazon.com, Apple.com, BestBuy.com, Blizzard.com, Creative.com, Dell.com, Frys.com, Newegg.com and Tiger Direct for $159.99. "As the leading innovator in precision audio for PC gaming we were well positioned to develop a headset that could live up to the high standards set forth by Blizzard Entertainment games," said Steve Erickson, VP and GM for audio and video at Creative. "The Sound Blaster World of Warcraft Wireless Headset is a result of this, providing an unprecedented combination of wireless technology, THX TruStudio PC technology for enriched audio performance and a unique design that stands out from anything else available to gamers."

NVIDIA GeForce 197.13 WHQL Drivers Released

Mar 25th, 2010 08:14 Discuss (27 Comments)

NVIDIA today released version 197.13 of its GeForce system software. The suite includes drivers for all NVIDIA GeForce GPUs and IGPs since GeForce 6 series, NVIDIA ION platform, as well as system software for NVIDIA PhysX, NVIDIA 3D Vision technology, and drivers for the on-chip HDMI audio which the latest GeForce GPUs are shipping with. The WHQL-signed driver includes PhysX 9.10.0129 system software, updated HDMI audio driver to version 1.0.9.1, application-specific performance increments for several games, notably the following:

Up to 13% performance increase in Crysis: Warhead with a single GPU, up to 30% performance increase in Crysis: Warhead with SLI technology
Up to 13% performance increase in H.A.W.X with single GPU, up to 15% performance increase in H.A.W.X with SLI technology
Up to 30% performance increase in Left 4 Dead with single GPU, up to 28% performance increase in Left 4 Dead with SLI technology

SLI profiles are added for the following applications: Assassin Creed II, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Command and Conquer 4: Tiberium Twilight, Grand Theft Auto IV: Episodes from Liberty City, Mass Effect 2, Napoleon: Total War, and Zombie Driver. SLI support is improved for: Metro 2033, Supreme Commander 2, Unigine, and World of Warcraft
- Ambient Occlusion support for Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, Need for Speed: Shift, Resident Evil 5, RUSE, and Street Fighter IV. Anti Aliasing can now be overridden for Mass Effect 2. As always, a number of new and existing bugs were fixed. For more information, refer to the Release Notes documents for Windows 7/Vista, Windows XP.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 197.13 WHQL

Toshiba Introduces Industry's Highest Areal Density 2.5-inch 750GB Hard Disk Drives

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Mar 25th, 2010 05:38 Discuss (5 Comments)

Toshiba Corporation, the pioneer in small form factor hard disk drives (HDDs), today announced two additions to its 5,400 RPM line of 2.5-inch HDDs featuring industry-leading storage capacities. In the standard 9.5 millimeter-high, two-platter design, the MK7559GSXP HDD incorporates both the industry's highest areal density and capacity at 750GB. Sample shipments will start from April, 2010.

The MK7559GSXP HDD features an areal density of 839.1M bit/mm², making it ideal for mobile applications in which capacity is key, including notebook computers and external HDDs. This HDD is well-suited for devices that value high capacity in a smaller footprint with improved acoustic performance and lower power operation compared to larger form factor HDDs. Those applications include all-in-one desktops, televisions and set top boxes.

AMD Comfortable with Current GPU Pricing, No Cuts in Sight

Mar 25th, 2010 05:23 Discuss (82 Comments)

A little later this week, NVIDIA will release two of its front-line GPUs that are compliant with the latest industry standards, notably Microsoft DirectX 11. This brings competition to AMD's high-end Radeon HD 5800 series and Radeon HD 5970 graphics cards, or does it? Competition often tends to have a pro-consumer effect out of price-wars. Sources indicate that AMD is not inclined to cut prices of its products after NVIDIA's launch of GeForce GTX 400 series. A few factors we think could prevent a price-war:

AMD could have a fair idea about how GeForce GTX 400 series GPUs compete with its GPUs, and given that their estimated performance levels and estimated target prices (estimated US $499 for GTX 480 and $349 for GTX 470), the performance/price equation for AMD's Radeon HD 5800 series GPUs iron out, with HD 5870 at around $400, HD 5850 at around $325, and HD 5830 at $240, barring HD 5970, which is being priced at a premium for its premium performance levels.
Although NVIDIA and its partners officially launch their GeForce GTX 400 series products on the 26th of March, market availability, backed by sizable inventories could just take some time, allowing AMD to maintain its prices.
AMD is introducing newer variants of its HD 5800 series GPUs, namely HD 5870 Eyefinity6 2GB, and allowing AIB partners to come up with 2 GB models of Radeon HD 5800 series cards.

ATI Catalyst 10.3 Driver Suite Released

Mar 25th, 2010 05:01 Discuss (26 Comments)

AMD released the ATI Catalyst 10.3 WHQL driver suite. Catalyst provides drivers and related system software for ATI Radeon, ATI FirePro, graphics processors, AMD 7-series and 8-series integrated graphics, AMD chipset system software, and drivers for ATI multimedia products. Version 10.3, like 10.2 promises to bring a series of significant additions to the feature-set, along with a long list of application-specific performance improvements.

Catalyst 10.3 introduces a set of additions to the ATI Eyefinity technology, such as display bezel compensation, per-display colour adjustments, multiple Eyefinity groups (which allows multiple Eyefinity display heads over available graphics cards and displays), and improvements to the display configuration switching. ATI hardware now supports stereoscopic 3D display over third-party middleware from the likes of iZ3D, DDD, etc., for output of stereoscopic L/R images at 120 Hz (60 Hz per eye). A number of bugs were also fixed. For more details refer to the Release Notes document.

DOWNLOAD: ATI Catalyst 10.3 for Windows 7/Vista 64-bit, Windows 7/Vista 32-bit, Windows XP 32-bit, Windows XP 64-bit

Game-specific performance increment figures follow.

Corsair Padlock 2 8 GB Review

Review USB Sticks

Corsair's latest Padlock revision brings about more changes than just a new look. Data is now secured with a 256-bit AES encryption, unlike the original Padlock 1, which just cut off power to the flash drive unless the correct PIN was entered. We drill the Padlock 2 to see if it holds up or snitches under pressure.

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WD Introduces 2.5-inch SATA for 24x7 Operation

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Mar 24th, 2010 11:20 Discuss (15 Comments)

As demand has increased for digital video storage, including high-definition (HD) video, and as the variety of video-systems configurations increases, WD today expanded its line of hard drives for AV/DVR and surveillance applications to include small form factor, 2.5-inch SATA hard drives. WD AV-25 hard drives provide high reliability with a Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) of 1 million hours and are engineered specifically for demanding, always-on multimedia streaming applications, while running at cool and quiet temperatures.

In addition to high reliability, WD AV-25 hard drives meet the demanding requirements of the AV/DVR and surveillance markets by offering customers universal compatibility, low power consumption and the ability to simultaneously record multiple audio and/or high-definition video streams. The new WD AV-25 hard drive is ideal for applications such as DVRs (digital video recorders), digital video surveillance and other small form factor environments where power consumption and 24x7 reliability are critical.

Acer Unveils TimelineX Series Energy-Efficient Notebooks

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Mar 24th, 2010 11:15 Discuss (0 Comments)

Nothing but an X could have represented the spirit of continuity of the highly successful Acer Timeline series, and underline the incredible performance improvements of the new models. Because while it goes without saying that battery life is fundamental for modern users, it is also true that they can't do without performance. Acer TimelineX embodies both, maintaining the same elegant, slim design that helped it seduce the market one year ago and setting the pace for innovations that make a tangible difference to the final result.

The latest Intel processors, dedicated graphics, HD multimedia, Dolby Home Theater v3 audio, and advanced connectivity combined with more than 8 hours of battery life. The principle behind the Acer TimelineX is exactly the same: optimize PC efficiency. Now though, this no longer means making sacrifices on power and performance.

Corsair Announces 32GB Flash Voyager Mini

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Mar 24th, 2010 08:59 Discuss (4 Comments)

Corsair, a worldwide leader in high-performance computer and flash memory products, today announced the addition of a 32GB model to its award-winning Flash Voyager Mini line of USB flash drives. The increased capacity allows a huge number of movies, music, photos and personal documents to be stored in a format that's one third the size of typical USB Flash drives.

"USB flash drive users love the convenience and ruggedness of the Flash Voyager Mini form factor," stated John Beekley, VP of Technical Marketing at Corsair. "The increase in density to 32GB allows users to carry their digital world with them at all times on this compact drive."

MSI Shows off N480GTX Graphics Card

Mar 24th, 2010 07:52 Discuss (31 Comments)

Here's MSI with its GeForce GTX 480 offering, the MSI N480GTX. While it's clear that all GeForce GTX 400 series graphics cards, at least initially, will adhere to NVIDIA's reference designs, each manufacturer is throwing in a little something unique. MSI's offering speaks of "Military-class" components, though it's likely that NVIDIA's own choice of components fit MSI's definition of military-class, and the MSI Afterburner software. The software is advertised to work with the card to provide voltage control, advertising up to 15% of performance gains using it. Usual features include DirectX 11 support, support for PhysX, CUDA, 3D Vision Surround, 480 CUDA cores, 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory across a 384-bit memory interface, and connectivity which includes two DVI-D and a mini HDMI.

HP Expands Workstation Series to Include Desk-side, Mobile and Small Form Factor Mode

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Mar 24th, 2010 06:23 Discuss (6 Comments)

HP today unveiled workstation offerings that include the first small form factor workstation to be available in every region of the world, multicore processor updates to its Z Workstation series and a mobile workstation with DreamColor display technology.

Adding to the award-winning HP Z Workstation series, the HP Z200 SFF Workstation delivers workstation performance and reliability in a sleek, ultracompact and affordable package, and is a great choice for space-constrained environments including the health care, engineering, education, financial and original equipment manufacturer markets.

PowerColor Expands Go! Green Series with HD 5670 and HD 5570 Graphics Cards

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Mar 24th, 2010 06:07 Discuss (1 Comment)

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, announces new mainstream products added to the Go! Green series: the PowerColor Go! Green HD5670 and Go! Green HD5570. Both new graphics cards take advantage of the Go! Green series features inclyding stealth like silence and low power consumption. The cards feature no external power connectors, enabling a power efficient and silent gaming and entertainment solution.

Both the Go! Green HD5670 and Go! Green HD5570 features an ultra-efficient passive cooling solution dissipating excessive heat with minimal noise. With extremely thin cooling fins that fully cover the GPU and memory, it can reduce the temperature efficiently through the added copper heat pipes.

Unigine Releases Version 2 of Heaven Benchmark

Mar 24th, 2010 04:17 Discuss (39 Comments)

Barely a week ahead of NVIDIA's launch of DirectX 11 compliant graphics cards, Unigine released version 2 of its Heaven benchmark. Unigine Heaven is a multi API 3D performance benchmark which supports DirectX 9, 10, 11, and OpenGL, but is popular for its DirectX 11 mode which demonstrates the API's hardware tessellation capabilities using tessellation-intensive scenes. Version 2 expands on the original with even more geometry-heavy tests, even more objects, more dynamic lights, and physics-driven flags, along with the original's complete use of hardware tessellation features, advanced screen-space ambient occlusion (SSAO), dynamic sky and daytime lighting, and interactive modes. The new version also lets you set the degree of tessellation using "extreme" and "moderate" modes. The application is available free of charge.

DOWNLOAD: Unigine Heaven 2.0

Leadtek Ready with GeForce GTX 400 Series Graphics Cards

Mar 24th, 2010 04:02 Discuss (25 Comments)

Leadteak is one of the many NVIDIA partners ready with its offering of GeForce GTX 470 and GeForce GTX 480 graphics cards, pictured ahead of its launch. As with every other GeForce 400 series SKU in the making, these cards stick to NVIDIA's reference design. The Leadtek GeForce GTX 480 is DirectX 11 compliant, has 480 CUDA cores, and 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory across a 384-bit memory interface, while the GeForce GTX 470 has 448 CUDA cores, and 1280 MB of GDDR5 memory across a 320-bit memory interface. Both are 3-way SLI capable. The two are expected to be launched later this week.

Vantec NexStar 3 SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Review

Review Portable Storage

USB 3.0 has slowly been gaining market share over the last months. Vantec is one of the first companies to offer a USB 3.0 compatible external 3.5" enclosure. We take the NexStar 3 for a spin to see if the USB 3 promise holds up to the test.

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AMD 880G Chipset Detailed

Mar 23rd, 2010 12:54 Discuss (11 Comments)

Following AMD's launch of the 890GX chipset which marked the entry of certain new features native to the chipset, the company is readying a slightly scaled-down version of it aimed at more mainstream consumers, business PC users, as well as HTPC and home PC users. The AMD 880G succeeds the 780G is being a mid-range integrated graphics chipset that supports a range of new features using the SB800 series southbridge chips.

While the 880G is based on essentially the same chip (RS880) as the 890GX, certain features such as ATI CrossFire are disabled, and board makers are directed to use this chipset on micro-ATX form-factor designs. The 880G northbridge packs an RV620-core based ATI Radeon HD 4250 IGP which supports DirectX 10.1, with 40 stream processors, and DDR3 SidePort memory support apart from the usual UMA. The IGP supports native HD video decode features, as well as HDMI with on-chip 7.1 channel audio. While the chipset supports one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 link for discrete graphics, it also gives out PCI-Express 2.0 x1, x4 lanes from the northbridge. Additional controllers such as USB 3.0 can benefit from a direct PCI-E 2.0 path. The SB800 class southbridge has a native 6 channel SATA 6 Gb/s controller complete with RAID support.

Synology Launches DX510 5-bay NAS Server

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Mar 23rd, 2010 12:40 Discuss (0 Comments)

Synology Inc. today launched the Synology DX510, an expansion unit to increase the capacity of Synology DS1010+ and DS710+ on the fly. When the Synology DS1010+ or DS710+ is running out of capacity, the Synology DX510 scales up its capacity by an additional 5 hard drives immediately. The RAID volume on the Synology DiskStation can be expanded directly without having to reformat the existing hard drives, ensuring the Synology DiskStation continues its service during the capacity expansion. When created as a separate volume, the Synology DX510 provides a great solution for backing up the Synology DiskStation.

The Synology DX510 is connected to the Synology DiskStation using an eSATA cable with custom-designed connectors on both ends, ensuring a reliable connection and maximum throughput. The eSATA 3.0 Gb/sec definition allows the hard drives in the connected Synology DX510 to operate as they are the internal ones of the Synology DiskStation.

SPARKLE Announces GeForce 210 1GB Graphics Card With 128-bit Video Memory Design

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Mar 23rd, 2010 12:33 Discuss (33 Comments)

SPARKLE Computer Co., Ltd., the professional VGA card manufacturer and supplier, today announced the SPARKLE GeForce 210 1GB Graphics Card with 128-bit video memory design, bringing impressive graphics processing power to your PC at an incredible value.

Based on NVIDIA's next generation G210 architecture, the SPARKLE GeForce 210 1GB Graphics Card adopts innovative unified architecture, dynamically allocates processing power to geometry, vertex, physics, or pixel shading operations, delivering up to 2x the gaming performance of prior generation GPUs. Built upon technologies such as NVIDIA Lumenex Engine, providing support for DirectX 10.1 Shader Model 4.0, NVIDIA Quantum Effects technology for physics computation and GigaThread Technology for extreme processing efficiency in advanced, next generation shader programs.

AMD Phenom II X4 T Series Detailed

Mar 23rd, 2010 09:10 Discuss (41 Comments)

In a few weeks' time, AMD will be releasing its brand new set of six-core Phenom II X6 processors. These processors are based on the "Thuban" core, which is a socket AM3 implementation of the Istanbul six-core architecture. Along with as many as four Phenom II X6 models including a high-end Black Edition part, AMD will be introducing new quad-core processors under the Phenom II X4 T series. Some of the first two models in this series includes the Phenom II X4 960T and Phenom II X4 940T.

The Phenom II X4 960T operates at 3.30 GHz, while the 940T runs at 3.00 GHz. What makes these chips different from existing chips based on the Deneb die is that it is in fact based on the Thuban die with two cores disabled. The resulting quad-core chip is codenamed Zosma. The other characteristic feature about not only Zosma, but also Thuban in general, is the introduction of a feature called "Turbo Core". The feature senses performance needs and steps up clock speeds of some cores, while powering down others. The stepping up of clock speed happens on the fly, and using a jump in BClk multiplier by a few units. The new chips also come with the unofficial incentive of being able to unlock the two disabled cores to turn it into a six-core chip. Unlocking may not work in all cases.

VIA Announces VX900 Chipset with Faster Graphics

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Mar 23rd, 2010 07:45 Discuss (7 Comments)

VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today announced the new VIA VX900 media system processor, a full featured single chip solution that will be coupled with the latest VIA Nano-3000 Series processors to bring truly stunning video playback to the latest HD online video services.

"VIA's trail-blazing VX900 will bring welcome relief to those pining for the best view of HD video online," said Richard Brown, Vice President of Marketing, VIA Technologies, Inc. "The VIA VX900 represents the most complete solution for HD digital content consumption on the market today."

Buffalo Ships MiniStation Cobalt USB 3.0 Portable HDDs

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Mar 23rd, 2010 05:34 Discuss (2 Comments)

Buffalo Technology, a global leader in the design, development and manufacturing of wired and wireless networking and network and direct attached storage solutions, has announced the MiniStation Cobalt USB 3.0 portable hard drive, the latest generation of SuperSpeed external storage solutions which deliver interface speeds up to 5 Gigabits per second. Designed for mobility and equipped with USB 3.0 technology for extreme transfer rates, MiniStation Cobalt USB 3.0 can quickly store or back up massive amounts of high-resolution graphics, digital audio and video files, photos and other assets, in a compact and lightweight form, perfect for travel.

"Buffalo continues to deliver on the promise of producing high quality, high performance storage solutions that push the technological envelope," said Ralph Spagnola, vice president of sales at Buffalo Technology. "With the new MiniStation Cobalt USB 3.0, we are continuing a tradition of innovative, high-speed storage solutions that consumers have come to rely on year after year."

NZXT Readies Crafted Series Vulcan Micro-ATX Case

Mar 23rd, 2010 04:10 Discuss (16 Comments)

NZXT's newest creation is the Vulcan. This micro-ATX tower case, as the company claims, is 40% more compact than ATX full-towers, and is designed to be LAN-portable. Being part of its Crafted Series cases, the Vulcan got its fair share of aesthetics that come from sharp industrial looks, all-black interiors, and extensive ventilation. The case measures 380 (H) x 180 (W) x 406 (D) mm, weighing 5.9 kg. It supports micro-ATX form-factor motherboards with nearly all the upper region of the motherboard tray having an opening to help handling certain types of CPU coolers. The case has two 5.25" drive bays, and four 3.5" bays in two parts. Between these two parts there's room created for long graphics cards. Ventilation includes 120 mm fan front intake, two 120 mm top exhaust, 92 mm rear exhaust, and a large 200 mm side panel intake. The Vulcan could be rolled out next month.

MSI Launches R5870/R5850 Twin Frozr II Graphics Cards

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Mar 23rd, 2010 03:46 Discuss (7 Comments)

MSI, the world-leading manufacturer of mainboards and graphics cards, today launched the R5870/R5850 Twin Frozr II, the latest in the Twin Frozr series of graphics display adaptors designed for outstanding cooling performance that have won praise from the media. In addition to the latest technologies such as ATI Stream, Eyefinity and DX11, which are supported by the standard ATI Radeon HD5870 and HD5850 GPUs, the new models have also inherited MSI's technical excellence in thermal design.

Not only are R5870/R5850 Twin Frozr II equipped with military class components where it matters the most, the new models have also adopted a powerful cooling device designed for Twin Frozr II - dual 8-cm PWM fans and dual 8-mm SuperPipe technology for an even more outstanding thermal design, all the while maintaining low-noise performance during operation. These are products that should not be missed by consumers who value both performance and silence.

Sapphire Introduces Radeon HD 5850 TOXIC 2 GB Graphics Card

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Mar 23rd, 2010 03:42 Discuss (15 Comments)

SAPPHIRE Technology has just announced a new version of its successful HD SAPPHIRE HD 5850 TOXIC Edition with a larger frame buffer size of 2GB. The SAPPHIRE HD 5850 TOXIC series are SAPPHIRE original designs based on the latest 40nm graphics architecture from the ATI division of AMD. They feature 1440 stream processors and 72 texture units delivering the fastest performance in class as well as supporting ATI Stream technology.

Designed for the enthusiast or demanding user, the SAPPHIRE HD 5850 2G TOXIC Edition is factory overclocked to 765MHz core and has 2GB of high speed DDR5 memory clocked at 1125MHz (4500MHz effective). SAPPHIRE's World leading Vapor-X technology not only allows the cards to run as much as 15 degrees C cooler and 10dB quieter than the standard models, it provides additional headroom for further performance tuning (overclocking).

ASUS Introduces New Graphics Cards with World of Warcraft Trial and Collectibles

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Mar 22nd, 2010 13:09 Discuss (15 Comments)

ASUS today launched a new co-op campaign with NVIDIA, which features a promotion in association with Blizzard Entertainment to include a 14-day trial for Blizzard's popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft, along with a collectible door hanger, with select ENGT200 Series graphics cards.

ASUS ENGT200 Series graphics cards are built with superior design acumen to provide the most compelling visual experience available to gamers. These ASUS limited edition graphics cards are up the ante with NVIDIA 3D Vision, making great use of GeForce GPUs. Using special glasses and 120Hz LCD displays or compatible HDTVs, NVIDIA 3D Vision tantalizes gamers with ultra-realistic graphics, vivid stereoscopic images, and immersive depth of field. Up to 400 PC games work out-of-the-box with NVIDIA's 3D Vision, including games such as Resident Evil 5, Borderlands, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Star Trek D-A-C, Dark Void, and Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.

Intel Readying Core i7 875K and Core i5 655K Overclocker-Friendly LGA1156 Processors

Mar 22nd, 2010 11:44 Discuss (17 Comments)

Intel carved out high-end socket LGA1156 processors such as the Core i7 800 series, just so people opting for the LGA1156 also have the headroom to upgrade to high-end parts without having to switch to the more powerful LGA1366 platform with its Core i7 900 series processors. There are four parts in the performance-enthusiast (>$250) segment: Core i5 670 dual-core, Core i7 860 and Core i7 870 quad-core. With the possible advent of more powerful socket AM3 processors from AMD, notably the Phenom II X6 series with its overclocker-friendly Black Edition parts, Intel seems to be finding a need to expand its LGA1156 series a little.

In the works are the Core i7 875K quad-core, and Core i5 655K dual-core. Being careful as to not label them "Extreme Edition" chips (since the "Extreme Edition" moniker seems to be clearly demarcated for the LGA1366 platform and the market segment by that name), Intel gave these chips the "K" brand identifier. Last summer, Intel released the Pentium Dual-Core E6500K to select markets. Similar to that, the Core i7 875K and Core i5 655K are overclocker-friendly chips that come with unlocked BClk multipliers (much like the Extreme Edition chips).

New Intel Chipset Drivers Bring TRIM Support for RAID Setups

Mar 22nd, 2010 08:47 Discuss (38 Comments)

The TRIM feature introduced by the newest generation of operating systems makes solid state drives more efficient with write performance. However, it does not work when RAID arrays are built with SSDs, until now. The latest version (9.6.0.1014) of Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver enables TRIM for each of the SSDs that are part of a RAID volume, of all RAID types, with the exception for RAID 5. The software can be downloaded from here.

Introduced with Microsoft's Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and with Linux 2.6.33, TRIM is a feature which uses system idle time to physically erase deleted data, since unlike with magnetic hard drives, data can't be simply overwritten on areas with deleted data. Deleted data must be erased before a NAND flash device can store fresh data in its place, and this causes additional write-cycles on setups without TRIM support. TRIM erases deleted data whenever feasible so that lesser number of write cycles are spent when there's data to be actually written in its place, increasing performance.

Patriot Readies Bolt USB Flash Drive With Native AES Encryption

Mar 22nd, 2010 08:31 Discuss (2 Comments)

Patriot Memory is readying a new USB flash drive called Patriot Bolt, which features native 128-bit AES data encryption. To protect data, the drive formats itself after 10 consecutive failed attempts to unlock it with its password. The Bolt is a USB 2.0 flash drive with read/write speeds of 27 MB/s and 13 MB/s, respectively, and comes in capacities between 8 and 64 GB (including 16 GB, and 32 GB). Prices range from 25.90 EUR, all the way up to 310 EUR.

Thermaltake Launches V5 Black Edition LAN-Portable PC Case

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Mar 22nd, 2010 07:58 Discuss (25 Comments)

Thermaltake, leading DIY chassis brand, is launching the latest edition to their mobile chassis series, the V5 Black Edition. The V5 Black Edition is catering specifically to the needs of LAN party enthusiasts and people on the move, who frequently have to schlep their PC along. An extra large and reinforced handle on top of the V5 Black Edition guarantees for a firm and comfortable grip. The stealth black color coating inside and outside in combination with the blue exhaust LED-fan on top and a transparent window on the left side panel, lend this chassis its stylish and characteristic looks.

Despite the V5 Black Edition being very portable, it still offers all the advantages and conveniences of a regular mid-tower. Overall there is room for up to 9 drives, in different combinations of 5.25", 3.5" or 2.5" sized devices. The removable drive bay cage for three 3.5" drives at the bottom makes installation even easier. With an extra large CPU cooler installation hole in the motherboard tray exchanging or upgrading your cooler adds to your long-term ease-of-use with microATX and standard ATX motherboards.

Lenovo Thinkpad Edge 14 and Thinkpad Edge 15 Ship This Week

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Mar 22nd, 2010 04:03 Discuss (2 Comments)

Lenovo today announced it is sharpening its focus on small to medium businesses (SMB) from top to bottom, beginning with the introduction of new products like the ThinkPad Edge 14 and 15 inch laptops. Designed for style and sophistication, select models offer an elegant backlit keyboard. The ThinkPad Edge laptops are already powering innovative SMBs like the Cupcake Stop in New York City. Lenovo also announced today the debut of new attention-grabbing worldwide ads showcasing the imagination, engineering and proven ability of Think-branded PC products.

"We're creating a full SMB program, starting with products like the ThinkPad Edge 14 and 15 inch laptops," said Jerry Paradise, director, Worldwide ThinkPad Product Marketing, Lenovo. "We have seen strong demand already for the ThinkPad Edge 13 inch, and we'll continue to expand the ThinkPad Edge lineup going forward, extending the same leadership in innovation, quality and reliability in SMB that we're known for with large enterprise customers."

AMD Working on Black Edition Phenom II X6 Part

Mar 22nd, 2010 02:26 Discuss (102 Comments)

AMD's lineup of six-core desktop processors under the Phenom II X6 banner indeed includes a high-end part. A Bahrain-based etailer disclosed prices of some of the models, which includes a Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition. This chip operates at 3.20 GHz, with a TDP of 125W. Being a Black Edition part, it sports an unlocked BClk multipler that helps overclocking. AMD plans to sell this chip at US $295. The Phenom II X6 1055T is the other part with a price-tag. This 2.80 GHz chip also has its TDP at 125W, although we've lead to believe that AMD will release a 95W variant, too. The 1055T goes for US $199. Both chips are based on the "Thuban" core, which feature six cores on a monolithic die, with 9 MB of total chip cache (512 KB L2 per core, and 6 MB L3 shared).

Active Media Products Launches 100 MB/sec eSATA Flash Drives

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Mar 22nd, 2010 01:53 Discuss (7 Comments)

Active Media Products, a leading manufacturer of SSDs and USB drives, today launched eSATA (external SATA) Flash drives that boast sequential read and write speeds up to 100 and 55 MB/sec respectively, about three times faster than the fastest USB 2.0 flash drives. "There are millions of laptops out there with eSATA ports that can take advantage of this performance." commented Jerry Thomson, VP of Sales at Active Media Products.

Active Media Products builds these drives with either 16GB or 32GB of MLC NAND flash. With no moving parts, they offer the same outstanding reliability as SSDs. "eSATA flash drives are a great storage solution for people who need faster transfer speeds than USB 2.0 can offer, yet still need the portability of a USB flash drive." Mr. Thomson added. Because many computers don't have an eSATA port, these drives also feature a Mini USB 2.0 port, so they can be used in virtually any PC or desktop.

NVIDIA Claims Upper Hand in Tessellation Performance

Mar 19th, 2010 14:43 Discuss (145 Comments)

A set of company slides leaked to the press reveals that NVIDIA is claiming the upper hand in tessellation performance. With this achievement, NVIDIA is looking to encourage leaps in geometric detail, probably in future games that make use of tessellation. NVIDIA's confidence comes from the way its GF100 GPU is designed (further explained here). Each GF100 GPU physically has 16 Polymorph Engines, one per streaming multiprocessor (SM) which helps in distributed, parallel geometry processing. Each Polymorph Engine has its own tessellation unit. With 15 SMs enabled on the GeForce GTX 480 and 14 on the GeForce GTX 470, there are that many independent tessellation units.

NVIDIA demonstrated its claims in the presentation using the Unigine Heaven, where the GeForce GTX 480 was pitted against a Radeon HD 5870. In many scenes where tessellation is lower, the GPUs performed neck-and-neck, with the GTX 480 performing better more often. But in scenes with heavy tessellation (particularly the "dragon" scene, where a highly detailed model of a dragon needs to be rendered with densely tessellated meshes, the GTX 480 clocks nearly a 100% performance increment over the HD 5870. NVIDIA has been confident about the tessellation performance back since January, when it detailed the GF100 architecture. The GeForce GTX 400 series graphics cards will be unveiled on the 26th of March.

Images Courtesy: Techno-Labs

MSI Announces P600 Business Notebook

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Mar 19th, 2010 10:30 Discuss (2 Comments)

The P600, MSl's latest business notebook, comes with a 15.6" high definition, power-saving, LED backlit display, an ultra-slim DVD Super-Multi drive, Intel's most advanced Core i5 processor, and a distinctive fingerprint reader. Light and slender, the P600 tips the scales at only 2.41 kilograms and boasts MSI's exclusive ECO Engine Power Saving Technology, giving it eight hours of battery power. The P600 is light, secure, highly mobile, and offers plenty of battery life.

MSI Marketing Director Sam Chern explains that the P600, MSI's newest business laptop, was meticulously crafted by the same design team that won Germany's iF Product Design Award for 2010. Attractive, light, and long on battery life, it comes with Intel's highly powerful Core i5 processor. What's more, the P600 has a biometric fingerprint reader to provide the strictest security possible for the on-the-go businessperson.

Gigabyte Readies Feature-Packed Mini-ITX LGA1156 Motherboard

Mar 19th, 2010 09:47 Discuss (27 Comments)

Gigabyte is readying a new motherboard in the mini-ITX form-factor which is bound to surprise some with its feature-set. The GA-H55N-USB3 is a socket LGA1156 motherboard based on the Intel H55 chipset, supporting the entire range of LGA1156 processors with a powerful 4+2 phase VRM. The socket is wired to two DDR3 DIMM slots for dual-channel memory, which is powered by its own 2-phase circuit. Gigabyte was able to accommodate five SATA channels by the chipset, making space for one eSATA, and four internal SATA 3 Gb/s ports with RAID support.

Its lone expansion slot is a full-bandwidth PCI-Express 2.0 x16, while being based on the H55 chipset, it also supports Intel Flexible Display Interface for processors with embedded graphics. On its connectivity front it doesn't make many compromises either, with 8+2 channel HD audio with optical SPDIF connector, a two-port USB 3.0 controller giving out two USB SuperSpeed ports, gigabit Ethernet, Keyboard/Mouse combo PS/2, four USB 2.0 ports on the rear-panel + four by internal headers, and display connectivity which includes DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI. The GA-H55N-USB3 is expected to be out in April.

Synology Launches DiskStation DS410 NAS Server

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Mar 19th, 2010 09:26 Discuss (0 Comments)

Synology Inc. today launched DiskStation DS410, a high-performance and affordable network attached storage solution that is specifically designed for home to business workgroup users to share and protect data cost-effectively.

The Synology DS410 is the ideal solution for users who need to share and store data as it delivers an average of 115 MB/sec reading speed under RAID 5 configuration in a Windows environment, and 54 MB/sec writing. Running on the award-winnning Synology DiskStation Manager 2.3 (DMS 2.3), the DS410 provides a reliable solution for data sharing with an easy to use interface and comprehensive businesses-oriented applications, including complete backup solutions, shared-folder level AES 256-bit encryption, and the Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR) that simplifies RAID setup by optimizing the disk capacities with data redundancy when different sized hard drives are used.

Scythe Releases the Yasya CPU Cooler

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Mar 19th, 2010 09:18 Discuss (12 Comments)

Scythe announces its newest high-end CPU cooler, named "Yasya" to the market. Yasya CPU Cooler is the first cooler from Scythe equipped with the newly developed T.M.L.F. (Trident Multi Layer Fin) structure. This special design maximizes the cooling surface to provide the best cooling result of the heatsink. By placing the heatsink fins as well as total of 6 copper heatpipes in unparallel design, static pressure loss is minimized and heat transfer is maximized. New 120 mm "Slip Stream 120 Adjustable PWM" case fan is supplied for optimized airflow. Although the fan supports the PWM feature user can manually adjust the speed between 470 to 1,370 rpm and 740 to 1,900 rpm.

Easy mounting is available by the famous V.T.M.S. (Versatile Tool-Free Multiplatform System) which requires no motherboard removal for the heatsink mounting. Yasya CPU Cooler is compatible to all current sockets, including the new socket LGA 1156. Scythe Yasya will be available worldwide from early March 2010 at the price of 57 US$ (excl. Tax) / 35,90 Euro (Excl. VAT).

Albatron Technology Releases OTM215L1 Touch Monitor, Passes WHQL Certification

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Mar 19th, 2010 09:09 Discuss (6 Comments)

Albatron Technology OTM215L1, the optical multi-touch monitor designed for home users, has passed WHQL test for Windows 7 in March 2010. To provide the best "touch" experience and ensure the best compatibility with "Windows Touch" structure, Albatron Technology spent lots of time in tuning the accuracy of multi-touch function in developing stage. With WHQL certification, user can enable multi-touch function under Windows 7 without install driver; furthermore, the "calibration-free" design brings plug-n-touch experience to all users, no need to calibrate by users.

When users have OTM215L1, they are free from installing mouse & keyboard. By multi-touch function & Windows 7 embedded "Virtual keyboard", users can do click or drag object on screen, and can even input text on screen via virtual keyboard. It does save more space for you.

Sparkle Announces 2 GB GeForce GT 220 Graphics Card

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Mar 19th, 2010 08:49 Discuss (38 Comments)

SPARKLE Computer Co., Ltd., the professional VGA card manufacturer and supplier, today announced the SPARKLE GeForce GT 220 2GB Graphics Card the first GT220 graphics card on market with 2GB video memory configuration, bringing incredible 3D power to mainstream gamers.

Based on NVIDIA's next generation GT216 architecture, the SPARKLE GeForce GT 220 2GB Graphics Card adopt innovative unified architecture, dynamically allocates processing power to geometry, vertex, physics, or pixel shading operations, delivering up to 2x the gaming performance of prior generation GPUs. Built upon technologies such as NVIDIA Lumenex Engine, providing support for DirectX 10.1 Shader Model 4.0, NVIDIA Quantum Effects technology for physics computation and GigaThread Technology for extreme processing efficiency in advanced, next generation shader programs.

XFX GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470 Pictured

Mar 19th, 2010 05:50 Discuss (68 Comments)

Here they are folks, pictures of the GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470 complete with partner branding. These come from XFX, both sticking to NVIDIA's reference design. The XFX GeForce GTX 480 comes with the usual feature set of 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory, 480 CUDA cores, and a broad feature set that includes support for DirectX 11, CUDA, PhysX, 3D Vision Surround, and 3-way SLI. The GeForce GTX 470 retains this feature set, albeit with 448 CUDA cores, and 1280 MB of GDDR5 memory. The two will be released on the 26th of March.

GeForce GTX 400 Series Clock Speeds and Other Details Surface

Mar 19th, 2010 04:40 Discuss (82 Comments)

Exactly a week ahead of releasing its GeForce GTX 400 series accelerators, NVIDIA held meetings with the press discussing the company's newest technologies, including GeForce GTX 400 series. Some lesser known details about the GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470 surfaced, among more known and established ones. To begin with, the GeForce GTX 480 is confirmed to have a CUDA core (shader core) count of 480. The GF100 core operates at 700 MHz, its shader domain at 1401 MHz, and the memory operates at 924 MHz (actual, 1848 MHz DDR, 3700 MHz effective). With a GDDR5 memory bus width of 384-bit, the effective memory bandwidth would be 173.4 GB/s.

The GeForce GTX 470, on the other hand, has 448 CUDA cores, clock speeds of 607 MHz core, 1215 MHz shader domain, and 837 MHz memory (actual, 1674 MHz DDR, 3348 MHz effective). With a GDDR5 memory bus width of 320-bit, the effective memory bandwidth would be 130.7 GB/s. While the GTX 480 has a board power of 295W, the GTX 470 has a board power of 225W. Another piece of information the source reveals is that internal testing by NVIDIA showed that the performance level to expect from the GeForce GTX 470 should be 5-10% higher than that of the ATI Radeon HD 5850. The GeForce GTX 480 should be expected to be just that much faster than the ATI Radeon HD 5870. It is also expected that the target price of the GeForce GTX 480 should be typically US $499, while the GTX 470 should go typically for US $349. Detailed reviews of the two should be up by this time, next week.

LSI Starts Shipping LSISSS6200 PCI-E Solid State Storage Card

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Mar 18th, 2010 10:47 Discuss (16 Comments)

LSI Corporation today announced it is sampling a PCI Express (PCIe)-based solid-state storage (SSS) solution to OEM customers. The LSISSS6200 PCIe SSS card provides a high-performance storage solution with enhanced reliability and industry-leading storage density for enterprise servers. For easy system integration and management, the card uses the industry-standard SAS protocol and widely deployed LSI SAS software. The card is designed to maximize transactional I/O performance for applications such as Web serving, data warehousing, data mining, online transaction processing and high-performance computing.

"Future customer requirements related to price, performance, power consumption and reliability align well with the benefits of solid-state storage," said Jeff Janukowicz, research manager, Hard Disk Drive Components and Solid State Drives at IDC. "PCIe-based SSS solutions, such as the LSISSS6200, can reliably meet next-generation data center needs with an improved price-to-performance ratio compared to traditional storage solutions."

AOC Announces iF23 LCD Monitor

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Mar 18th, 2010 09:47 Discuss (5 Comments)

AOC, one of the top global players in providing the best value display technology,has released a new series of LCD Monitors featuring superior IPS (in-plane switching) panels. The AOC iF23 features a 23" widescreen IPS LCD monitor with both analogue/VGA (15 pin) and digital/DVI (24 pin) inputs. The IPS display panel allows for a super-wide viewing angle of 178 degrees, providing consistent image quality from side viewpoints, and super-high dynamic contrast ratio of 100,000:1.

The IPS technology provides both "True Wide" viewing - which offers a consistent image from almost any angle; and "Real Colour" - which allows the image to display with more depth and less colour shift across the screen. These features make the AOC iF23 monitor highly suitable for graphics professionals and any users who value superior image quality.

In Win Releases Ironclad Full ATX Case

Mar 18th, 2010 08:49 Discuss (27 Comments)

In Win released its newest case, the Ironclad. The case makes extensive use of an industrial design with parts of its exterior making use of perforated metal, appealing more to the LAN-party animals and case-modders. It is a fairly large full-ATX tower measuring 550x225x566mm (21.7"x8.9"x22.3") HxWxD, which is made mostly of SECC steel. It has 5 external 5.25" bays and a drive cage with six 3.5" drive bays. Also included is a 2.5" bay for SSDs. The motherboard tray features cable-management holes, along with a big hole at the CPU socket area for managing CPU coolers with backplates. There are 8 expansion slots, with the 8th one making installing double-slot graphics cards on the last expansion slot easy. Each slot cover has a vent with dust-filters. Dust filters also make it to other areas such as the PSU air intake and the front grill.

The case has vents on almost every side. Fans include one 120 mm front, a rear 120 mm, a top 120 mm fan (while the top has slot for two 120 mm fans), a large 220 mm fan on the side-panel, which also has holders for four 120 mm fans instead of the 220 mm fan. Some panels also come with noise-dampening foam padding. Right below the expansion slots and above the PSU, there are four holes for water-cooling tubings, for two independent loops. The front-panel is located on the top, and has FP audio, two USB ports, two eSATA, and an IEEE-1394a. Although released, In Win didn't announce a price for the Ironclad.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 Reference Design Card Final Design Pictured

Mar 18th, 2010 07:58 Discuss (137 Comments)

Many would be familiar with these pictures of a generic graphics card based on NVIDIA's GF100 GPU which was spotted at this year's CES. A company slide sourced by DonanimHaber reveals the final iteration of NVIDIA's reference design GeForce GTX 480 graphics accelerator, and what it looks like from the outside. A set of slightly more recent pictures showed its cooling assembly from inside. The protruding heat pipes intrigued us as they were inconsistent with the cooling assembly on the card NVIDIA showed off at CES, which we then believed to be the top-end GTX 480 part. The company slide confirms what the cooling assembly looks like when it's all put together.

The cooler is highly ventilated, with vents all over the cooler's shroud. There are vents on the top, on the sides, apart from the usual obverse fan air intake. To increase its intake, the PCB is further cut to help draw air from the reverse-side of the PCB. The cooler's four large (we reckon 8 mm thick) heat pipes protrude about a centimeter out of the card's periphery, increasing its height by that much. The cooler itself respects the 2-slot thickness limit which is most conventional. A table in the slide also confirms some details we already know: the card has 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory across a 384-bit wide interface. It has a TDP of under 300W, which a recent report reveals to be a hairbreadth under 300W, at 296W. Power is drawn in from an 8-pin and a 6-pin PCI-E power connector. The card is 10.5 inches long, the same length as its reference-design GeForce GTX 280. The card supports 3-way SLI. It will be unveiled on the 26th of March.

PowerColor Makes HD 5770 Eyefinity 5 Graphics Card Official

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Mar 18th, 2010 06:01 Discuss (7 Comments)

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphics cards, today introduces the first and only graphics solution on the planet: the HD5770 Eyefinity 5. The HD5770 Eyefinity 5 features multi-display eyefinity technology, enables up to 5 monitors to be operated from one card through its five mini displayport onboard design. Gamers can easily make use of this unique feature and have different display configurations to enjoy a wider field of view and get more done at the same time.

This unparalleled graphics solution takes advantage of the HD5770 series features, clocking in at 850 MHz core speed and 1200MHz memory speed, the card is ready to tackle all the latest game titles and enable a superior gaming experience. With support for Microsoft's DirectX 11, the HD5770 Eyefinity 5 provides the most vivid gaming experience like never before. Compatible with ATI Stream technology, the card enables demanding data parallel compute tasks from the CPU to GPU, accelerating daily applications.

AMD Phenom II X6 Series Clock Speeds Revealed

Mar 17th, 2010 13:02 Discuss (65 Comments)

AMD's much talked about six-core processors, the Phenom II X6 series, consists of three models for what we know in good detail: model numbers 1075T, 1055T, and 1035T at the bottom. But what remained a mystery were their clock speeds. A leak by one of the motherboard manufacturers who recently released supportive BIOS updates reveals the clock speed for the entry-level Phenom II X6 1035T to be 2.60 GHz, that of the 1055T to be 2.80 GHz, and of the high-end 1075T to be 3.00 GHz. As revealed earlier, the 1035T has a TDP of 95W, while the 1055T has both 125W and 95W variants in the making, and the 1075T has a TDP of 125W.

With so many motherboard vendors specifically designing their upcoming products to be ready for "140W TDP", it isn't hard to guess that there could be a higher-end part in the making, which is probably clocked even higher, and comes with the Black Edition branding. All Phenom II X6 processors are based on the "Thuban" core, a port of the Istanbul six-core architecture to the AM3 package. There are six cores with dedicated 512 KB of L2 caches and a shared 6 MB L3 cache (total cache being 9 MB). The new chip will be announced in the weeks to come.

ViewSonic Announces New ViewBooks and an All-in-one PC

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Mar 17th, 2010 12:48 Discuss (2 Comments)

ViewSonic Corp., a leading global provider of visual display, computing and digital content solutions, today announced the commercial availability of three new mobile and desktop PC products previewed at CES 2010 to meet every individual's computing needs. "Our new mobile and desktop PC products truly speak to our green computing initiative," said Sally Wang, ViewSonic's senior director of product marketing. "Whether it's the energy-efficient processors, sleek plastic saving designs, or minimized use of cables and other excessive materials, our ULV notebooks and All-in-One PCs are the smarter solution."

Acer Aspire TimelineX 1830T Calpella-based Notebook Detailed

Mar 17th, 2010 12:37 Discuss (7 Comments)

Acer's upcoming Aspire TimelineX 1830T ultra-slim notebook based on the Intel Calpella platform is closer to release with press-images making it to the public domain. The new 11.6 inch notebook uses an Intel Core i5 520UM dual-core processor with integrated graphics, with clock-speed of 1.06 GHz. It is aided by 2 GB of DDR3 memory, and a HDD with over 160 GB of storage. It has a 11.6 inch screen with a resolution of 1366x768 pixels, integrated web-camera, a typically-sized keyboard. Connectivity options include gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth and HSDPA (optional), HDMI display output, and 802.11 b/g/n WiFi. Apart from the usual number of USB ports and audio connectors, the notebook features a multi-format card reader. The Aspire TimelineX 1830T will be released later this month.

CoolIT Intros Freezone Elite V2 CPU TEC Cooler

Mar 17th, 2010 11:17 Discuss (20 Comments)

CoolIT silently introduced its newest CPU pre-assembled thermoelectric couple water-cooling kit, the Freezone Elite V2. Like the Freezone Elite, the new cooler comprises of a CPU water-block with factory fitted water loop connecting a reservoir, pump, and radiator. Its CPU block has a nickel-plated copper base, its retention modules support sockets LGA775, LGA1366, and AM3/AM2+. Its pump can circulate 210 litres per hour with a noise output of under 15 dBA. Heat is dissipated in a 121 x 82 x 65 mm aluminum radiator, cooled by a 120 mm dual-ball bearing fan that spins at 1100 to 2500 rpm. The CoolIT Freezone Elite V2 should be available soon at a price of 339.99 EUR.

Razer Releases The First Gaming Grade Mouse Specifically For Left-Handers

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Mar 17th, 2010 07:18 Discuss (27 Comments)

Razer, the world's leading manufacturer of high-end precision gaming and lifestyle peripherals, today announced the Razer DeathAdder Left Hand Edition, the very first gaming mouse designed with the professional left-handed gamer in mind. The Razer DeathAdder Left Hand Edition was created to meet community demands for a mouse that was purposefully engineered to give lefties the competitive edge, combining a comfortable ergonomic form factor with a powerfully precise 3.5G infrared sensor.

"Leftie gamers have long been requesting that we develop a gaming grade mouse that is designed exclusively for the left-handed gaming community and we really value the feedback we receive from our fans," said Robert "Razerguy" Krakoff, president, Razer USA. "Not many gamers know this, but I am a southpaw myself and feel truly excited to have a mouse that fits perfectly in my left hand. There is really no substitute for gaming with your naturally dominant hand."

EVGA Unleashes Classified SR-2 Motherboard and Power Supply

Mar 17th, 2010 06:21 Discuss (47 Comments)

EVGA just released two of its most indigenous designs that marks a complete evolution from being a reference-design products vendor to an enthusiast-grade hardware giant: the much talked about EVGA Classified SR-2 dual-LGA1366 enthusiast-workstation motherboard, and power supply unit (PSU) tailor-made to suit systems based on the SR-2 motherboard. To begin with, the Classified SR-2 motherboard is a dual-LGA1366 motherboard supporting two dual-socket capable Intel Xeon E5500 series, and X5600 series quad-core and six-core processors. It is based on Intel's enterprise-grade 5520 chipset with ICH10R southbridge.

The Intel 5520 supports two QuickPath Interconnect paths to each of the sockets, which in turn can communicate with each other. Since each socket (processor) has its own triple-channel DDR3 memory controller, it has its own six DDR3 memory slots. The 5520 gives out two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 lanes which connect to two NVIDIA nForce 200 chips that give out two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 links each. With external x8 switching thrown into the mix, the motherboard manages a staggering seven PCI-Express x16 slots.

A-Data Announces Gaming Series 8 GB Dual-Channel DDR3 Memory Kit

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Mar 17th, 2010 05:48 Discuss (6 Comments)

A-DATA Technology Co., Ltd., the worldwide leading manufacturer in high-performance DRAM modules and flash application products, today introduces its new XPG Gaming Series DDR3-1600G 8GB dual channel kit. Designed for gaming enthusiast who adopts the Intel P55 and H55 motherboards, the XPG Gaming Series DDR3-1600G 8GB dual channel kit offers CL9-9-9-24 timing at a voltage of 1.65V, and high-capacity to optimize the PC performance for ultimate gaming experiences.

"The ultimate gaming experiences are relying on proper choice of PC hardware and overall performance. Therefore, we introduced XPG Gaming Series DDR3-1600G as 8GB dual channel kit." said Action Chen, Deputy Project Manager of A-DATA XPG Department. "Gaming enthusiasts are able now to enjoy the extreme capacity and high speed by using XPG Gaming Series DDR3-1600G 8GB dual channel kit with 64 bit OS and satisfy their insatiable thirst for ultimate gaming experiences."

Sharkoon Announces Two New Stereo Headsets for Gamers

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Mar 17th, 2010 05:43 Discuss (0 Comments)

Sharkoon is expanding its "Rush" product line to now include two new stereo headsets, which provide a rich sound reproduction during play, but also offer Multimedia and voice applications such as VoIP or TeamSpeak. The compact and lightweight Sharkoon RHS100 with foldable neckband, cushioned ear pieces, and infinitely rotating microphone comes in flat black with bright optical accents in the typical Rush-orange application on both earpieces. With its built-in sound chip, the RHS100 is simply connected via the USB port on a PC or Notebook, replacing an absent or inferior soundcard, and saves time from having to switch the lengthy cable between the PC-speakers and headset. The speakers Bass effect can be controlled on the RHS100 through the switchable vibrations function. The Bass proportion can be regulated by the cable integrated controller between medium and maximum effect. The two meter long cable also functions with an included volume knob and an orange illuminating microphone mute. The required drivers for Windows 7, as well as configuration software, are provided on the Sharkoon website for download.

Thermaltake SpinQ Review

Review CPU Coolers

Thermaltake has been around for many years, creating heatsinks for nearly every market imaginable. Thermaltake's first claim to fame was the Golden Orb, a unique cooler that set the computing world on its ear. Thermaltake has not stopped there, and they are still inventing challenging new designs. Today we take a look at highly awarded SpinQ and see what it has to offer.

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New Crucial Energy-Efficient DDR3L 1.35v Server Memory Supports Latest Intel Platform

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Mar 16th, 2010 12:48 Discuss (5 Comments)

Lexar Media, a leading global provider of memory products for digital media, today introduced Crucial DDR3L-1333Mhz 1.35v energy-efficient server memory modules in support of the new Intel Xeon processor 5600 series. Available in 1GB, 2GB and 4GB RDIMM and VLP (very low profile) RDIMM modules, Crucial DDR3L memory modules are fully compatible and have been validated with the new Intel Xeon processor 5600 series. Servers across the enterprise, including those utilized for virtualization, data storage and processing, and blade servers will reap the benefits of new Crucial DDR3L memory. Crucial DDR3L memory is available through select resellers worldwide and online at Crucial.com/server.

"The benefits of energy-efficient DDR3L memory are clear - most notably the significant reduction in memory sub-system energy consumption and overall system cooling demands. Moreover, these benefits come without sacrificing the performance gains our customers expect from Intel's next-generation servers," said Jim Jardine, Lexar Media senior worldwide product manager. "Additionally, all Crucial DDR3L 1.35v memory has been fully validated and certified compatible with the Intel Xeon Processor 5600 series, so customers can rest assured their server infrastructure investment will perform reliably and efficiently with Intel's newest processors."

ZOTAC Unleashes World’s First ION Upgrade Kits

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Mar 16th, 2010 12:03 Discuss (11 Comments)

ZOTAC International, the world's largest manufacturer graphics cards, mini-ITX motherboards and mini-PCs in the channel, today unveils the world's first ION Upgrade Kits featuring a ZOTAC small form factor motherboard and ZOTAC ION graphics card for a combination that delivers phenomenal value with premium graphics and outstanding user experience.

A ZOTAC ION graphics card with 16 unified shaders and 512MB of DDR3 memory empowers the ZOTAC ION Upgrade Kits with high-end features such as NVIDIA CUDA and PureVideo HD technologies, DirectX 10.1, DirectCompute, OpenGL and OpenCL compatibility for a high-performance and feature rich experience.

Shuttle Redesigns its All-in-One-PCs

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Mar 16th, 2010 10:36 Discuss (2 Comments)

Shuttle Inc., a leading developer and manufacturer of multi-form-factor solutions such as the world-famous XPC Mini-PC Barebones, is announcing the sales launch of a new All-in-One-PC. The second version of the X50 promises impressive, improved features and additional functions.

Almost one year after its successful introduction, the X50V2 Barebone is now being launched and will also be offered in future as a complete system, with a choice of Windows 7 or Linux.

GeForce GTX 480 has 480 CUDA Cores?

Mar 16th, 2010 10:09 Discuss (79 Comments)

In several of its communications about Fermi as a GPGPU product (Next-Gen Tesla series) and GF100 GPU, NVIDIA mentioned the GF100 GPU to have 512 physical CUDA cores (shader units) on die. In the run up to the launch of GeForce 400 series however, it appears as if GeForce GTX 480, the higher-end part in the series will have only 480 of its 512 physical CUDA cores enabled, sources at Add-in Card manufacturers confirmed to Bright Side of News. This means that 15 out of 16 SMs will be enabled. It has a 384-bit GDDR5 memory interface holding 1536 MB of memory.

This could be seen as a move to keep the chip's TDP down and help with yields. It's unclear if this is a late change, because if it is, benchmark scores of the product could be different when it's finally reviewed upon launch. The publication believes that while the GeForce GTX 480 targets a price point around $449-499, while the GeForce GTX 470 is expected to be priced $299-$349. The GeForce GTX 470 has 448 CUDA cores and a 320-bit GDDR5 memory interface holding 1280 MB of memory. In another report by Donanim Haber, the TDP of the GeForce GTX 480 is expected to be 298W, with GeForce GTX 470 at 225W. NVIDIA will unveil the two on the 26th of March.

Zotac Readies Five New ZBOX Series Nettops

Mar 16th, 2010 09:49 Discuss (8 Comments)

Zotac is working on five new MAG nettops under its ZBOX series. Each of these "anywhere PCs" measure 18.8 (L) x 18.8 (W) x 4.4 (D) cm, and offer enough power for basic computing. The five new models are based on a variety of nettop platforms. As standard features, these have 160 GB HDDs, SDHC card reader, USB 2.0 and eSATA, Gigabit Ethernet and WiFi. Zotac's new nettops will debut next month. Specifications and expected price of each of these are as follows:

HD-ID11 model - 1.66 GHz Atom 510 dual-core CPU / 1GB of RAM / Next-gen ION (GT218 GPU with 512MB dedicated memory) / $255
HD-ND21 model - 1.3 GHz Processor SU4100 dual-core CPU /2GB of RAM / ION (first-gen) / $300
HD-ND02 model - 1.6 GHz Atom 330 dual-core CPU / 2GB of RAM (DDR3) / ION (first-gen) / $217
HD-AD01 model - 1.5 GHz Athlon X2 Neo L325 dual-core CPU / 2GB of RAM / ATI Radeon HD 3200 / $242.

WD Introduces 1 TB My Passport SE for Mac Portable Hard Drives

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Mar 16th, 2010 09:35 Discuss (3 Comments)

WD, the world's leader in external storage solutions, today introduced its new one terabyte (TB) and 750 gigabyte (GB) capacity My Passport SE for Mac portable USB drives. Available at WD's online store, the new My Passport SE for Mac portable drives are formatted for Mac and compatible with Apple Time Machine software.

Perfect for saving, storing and backing up Mac computers, these ultra-portable 1 TB and 750 GB My Passport SE drives are easy to carry because they are USB-powered and do not need an external power adapter1. Equipped with 256-bit hardware encryption with password protection for an extra level of security, this small drive with mega-capacity give users peace-of-mind knowing that their data is protected from unauthorized access or theft.

ASUS Completes the Designo Monitor Series with LS246H

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Mar 16th, 2010 09:25 Discuss (3 Comments)

ASUS today introduced the latest addition to its existing range of Designo Series LCD monitors-the LS246H. Together with the preceding MS Series, the LS246H continues to deliver the perfect combination of style and performance. Taking inspiration from the binary state, the Designo Series incorporates the contrasting elements of the numbers 1 and 0, and straight lines and curves into an ultra-slim profile. The Designo Series monitors feature ring stands with Ergo-Fit Technology, allowing users to make tilt angle adjustments with just one finger. They come with a 50,000:1 contrast ratio, 2ms response time, and ASUS Splendid Video Intelligence Technology to deliver stunning visuals in Full HD 1080p. On top of that, their eco-friendly designs use 50% less hazardous materials during the manufacturing process, and delivers power savings of up to 40%.

ASUS Introduces P7F7-E SuperComputer Motherboard with Next-Gen Connectivity Features

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Mar 16th, 2010 09:17 Discuss (9 Comments)

ASUS today announced the launch of the new ASUS P7F7-E WS SuperComputer motherboard which maximizes transmission speeds by integrating the industry's latest I/O technologies such as USB 3.0, SATA 6G storage interface, and IEEE 1394b FireWire standard. Additionally, the ASUS P7F7-E WS SuperComputer is equipped with the LGA1156 socket and the latest Intel 3450 chipset with onboard graphics. For extreme gaming enjoyment, up to four ATI CrossFireX cards or 3-way/2-way NVIDIA SLI cards can be accommodated to generate smoother and sharper visuals. It also leverages NVIDIA CUDA parallel computing architecture to support up to four NVIDIA Tesla cards with Clarkdale Processors for intensive high-performance computing.

The ASUS P7F7-E WS SuperComputer is the best choice for providing comprehensive I/O support. It includes USB 3.0 ports-the latest connectivity standard with 4.8Gb/s speeds-to support next-generation components and peripherals. USB 3.0 transfers data ten times faster and is backward compatible with USB 2.0 components. Additionally, the ASUS P7F7-E WS SuperComputer includes Serial ATA (SATA) 6Gb/s storage interfaces for 6.0Gbps data throughput, thus enhancing scalability, accelerating data retrieval, and doubling the bandwidth of current bus systems. To support FireWire-enabled digital video recorders and computers, the ASUS P7F7-E WS SuperComputer also includes two IEEE 1394b ports supporting up to 800 Mb/s speeds-doubling the previous IEEE 1394a speeds.

Intel Introduces 2010 Core i7 Extreme, and Most Secure Data Center Processors

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Mar 16th, 2010 05:39 Discuss (8 Comments)

Combining unprecedented security, performance and energy efficiency, Intel Corporation today launched the Intel Xeon Processor 5600 series. The new processors deliver two new security features -- Intel Advanced Encryption Standard New Instructions (Intel AES-NI), and Intel Trusted Execution Technology (Intel TXT) -- that enable faster encryption and decryption performance for more secure transactions and virtualized environments, providing data centers with a stronger foundation for cloud security.

These are also the first server and workstation chips based on the groundbreaking, new Intel 32nm logic technology, which uses Intel's second-generation high-k metal gate transistors to increase speed and decrease energy consumption. The Intel Xeon Processor 5600 series supports up to six cores per processor and delivers up to 60 percent greater performance than the 45nm Intel Xeon processor 5500 series. In addition, data centers can replace 15 single-core servers with a single new one, and achieve a return on their investment in as little as 5 months.

Kingston Technology Releases 1.35V Registered DDR3L Memory Modules Validated by Intel

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Mar 16th, 2010 05:23 Discuss (3 Comments)

Kingston Technology Europe Ltd, a subsidiary of Kingston Technology Company, the independent world leader in memory products,today announced that its low-voltage registered dual inline memory modules (RDIMMs) have been validated for use in the upcoming Intel Westmere-EP processor-based server platforms. The Kingston ValueRAM DDR3L ('L' for low voltage) 1333MHz (1.35 volt) server RDIMMs were certified on Intel's Westmere reference platform.

Kingston is proud to offer customers our 1.35-volt server memory and having it certified for use with Intel's next-generation Xeon processors," said Stephane Rizzetto European Product Development Manager for DRAM of Kingston Technology. "Our low voltage registered server memory helps lower total cost of ownership in datacenters as it uses less power, thus producing less heat than equivalent 1.5-volt modules resulting in lower cooling costs for memory-dense servers."

Sennheiser HD 800 Review

Review Headphones

Sennheiser's latest and greatest headphones are put to the test. The HD800s created quite a fuzz when released, not only were they one of the most expensive headphones launched last year, they were also the most anticipated ones. In this review we put them to the test and see if there can be a reason to spend $1800 on headphones.

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Intel Brings Affordable Solid-State Computing to Netbooks and Desktop PCs

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Mar 15th, 2010 13:26 Discuss (38 Comments)

Intel Corporation announced today a new addition to its award-winning lineup of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs): the Intel X25-V Value SATA SSD. Priced at $125, the 40 gigabyte (GB) drive is aimed at value segment netbooks and dual-drive/boot drive desktop set-ups to offer users the performance and reliability advantages of solid-state computing at an affordable, entry-level price.

SSDs can replace or coexist with traditional hard disk drives (HDDs). With no movable parts or spinning platters, SSDs are more reliable and higher performing than HDDs. This makes users more productive as they experience faster overall system responsiveness. With the affordable price point, consumers can now enjoy the benefits of an SSD by adding an SSD option to their current desktop PC in a dual-drive or "boot drive" set up. In a dual-drive configuration, the Intel X25-V SSD is added to a desktop with an existing HDD. The SSD is loaded with the operating system and favorite applications to take advantage of the speedy performance which is nearly 4x faster than a 7200RPM HDD. Users keep their existing HDD as a means of higher capacity data storage. This capability is commonly referred to as a "boot" drive since the SSD accelerates boot or start up time.

SPARKLE Unveils Range of GeForce 210/GT220/GT240 Silent Series LP Graphics Cards

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Mar 15th, 2010 13:17 Discuss (16 Comments)

SPARKLE Computer Co., Ltd., the professional VGA card manufacturer and supplier, today unveils the SPARKLE GeForce 210/GT220/GT240 Low Profile Silent Series Graphics Cards with low profile design, addressing, fulfilling and exceeding the HTPC users' demand on silent working, power consumption and HD video in small HTPC cases.

The SPARKLE GeForce 210/GT220/GT240 Silent Series Graphics Cards are a half-height video cards suitable for small form-factor, book size and home theatre PCs users that desperately want a dedicated HDMI jack on the cheap.The SPARKLE GeForce 210/GT220/GT240 Silent Series Graphics Cards can be easily installed in narrow space HTPC chassis. So the SPARKLE GeForce 210/GT220/GT240 Silent Series Graphics Cards not only can easily meet the HD video playback and DX10.1 gaming demand from HTPC users, but also can easily satisfy the requirements from SSF, mini-chassis and industry PCs which demand compact and practical graphics cards.

Kingston Creates 2400 MHz DDR3 Memory Kit, Certified by Intel

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Mar 15th, 2010 12:45 Discuss (4 Comments)

Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced it has developed the fastest Intel-certified memory in the world. Running at 2400MHz, Kingston's HyperX dual-channel DDR3 memory kit (Kingston part#: KHX2400C9D3T1K2/4GX) gained Intel XMP certification on the Core i7 platform. Intel's certification is posted here.

The 2400MHz kit runs at 9-11-9-27-2 timings at 1.65 volts and was developed for enthusiasts, gamers, and benchmarkers looking to scale new memory heights. As with all Kingston memory, the 2400MHz kit was created with the highest design-engineering principles and subjected to OEM-quality production and testing standards to gain Intel XMP certification. The memory was tested to great success on several P55-based systems including the GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD4P motherboard.

NVIDIA Brings A New Dimension To PC Gaming With NVIDIA 3DTV Play

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Mar 15th, 2010 11:43 Discuss (28 Comments)

NVIDIA today announced NVIDIA 3DTV Play, its latest software solution that allows consumers to connect their GeForce GPU-powered desktop or notebook computer to new 3D TVs, for the ultimate in big screen 3D gaming action. For the launch of 3DTV Play, NVIDIA is teaming up with Panasonic on its coast-to-coast 2010 "Panasonic Touch the Future Tour," where consumers can test drive 3DTV Play-based PCs running on the new Panasonic VIERA Full HD 3D TVs, that just launched this month.

3DTV Play software lets you connect any compatible NVIDIA GeForce GPU-powered PC or notebook to 3D TVs for the ultimate, high-definition, big-screen, 3D entertainment experience. By leveraging the processing power of NVIDIA GeForce GPUs, 3DTV Play software delivers the best the PC has to offer: play hundreds of standard PC games in stunning 3D environments such as World of Warcraft - Wrath of the Lich King, Battlefield Bad Company 2, and James Cameron's Avatar: The Game. You can also watch upcoming Blu-ray 3D Hollywood blockbusters, view digital 3D photographs, and even watch streaming 3D movies for the ultimate viewing party. The active-shutter glasses bundled with each VIERA full HD 3D TV sold work seamlessly with NVIDIA GPUs and off-the-shelf PC gaming titles and other 3D entertainment content.

Prolimatech Makes Armageddon CPU Cooler Official

Mar 15th, 2010 11:29 Discuss (32 Comments)

Spotted on several occasions prior to its launch, the Prolimatech Armageddon CPU cooler was finally announced to markets. The Armageddon is a retake on the tower-design CPU heatsink design. While essentially it's the same as most heatsinks in its league, what's new about its design is that the heat pipes that pass through the base contact the aluminum fins throughout their lengths (typically the pipes pass through the fins at their ends). Also, there are two blocks of aluminum fins, to which the heat pipes add turbulence. The two blocks are topped off with a metal cap.

The main unit measures 144 (W) x 160.3 (H) x 50 (D) mm, and weighs 750 g (1.65 lbs). 140 mm or 120 mm fans can be strapped onto it from either sides. The base and heat pipes are made of nickel-plated copper. The package includes no fan, but comes with a tube of Prolimatech PK-1 thermal paste. Out of the box the Armageddon supports most current Intel sockets including LGA-1366, LGA-1156, and LGA-775 using its bundled bolt-through retention module. AMD sockets AM3/AM2+ are also supported, but require an optional RM kit. Prolimatech's newest creation will be available from April 2nd, at a price of 60 EUR.

Dell Intros G2410H LCD Monitor

Mar 15th, 2010 04:14 Discuss (10 Comments)

Dell rolled out its latest business LCD monitor, the G2410H. This model succeeds an older, similar model, the G2410. It has a 24-inch TN panel screen with WLED backlit illumination. The LCD uses arsenic-free glass. Power management and ergonomics is taken care of by an ambient light sensor that adjusts the monitor's settings to best suit the environment it's in. When in sleep-mode, the display consumes 0.15W of power (under 20W typical consumption). Its stand allows height and angle adjustments. Specifications include a native resolution of 1920x1080 pixels, 5 ms response time, 250 cd/m² brightness, and contrast ratio of 1,000:1 with dynamic ratio of 1,000,000:1. It takes input from DVI and D-Sub. Sold with a 3-year warranty, the G2410H is priced at $339.

Lenovo Unveils New Full-HD Capable Monitors

Mar 15th, 2010 04:02 Discuss (18 Comments)

Lenovo unveiled three new monitors with full HD resolutions, one of which is multi-touch capable. The series includes the L2261 Wide, L2361p Wide, and L2461x Wide Multi-Touch (pictured in the same order). The lineup starts with L2261 Wide, a 21.5 inch display with a native resolution of 1920x1080 pixels, and brightness of 250 cd/sq m. The monitor features a dash of aesthetics with a metallic stand that lets it swivel. It takes input from D-Sub and DVI.

Next up is the L2361p Wide with its 23 inch screen, the same 250 cd/sq m, and 1920x1080 resolution, and a pad stand. It has some accessories such as integrated 3W stereo speakers and mic, 0.3 MP web-camera, and a 3-port USB hub. Lastly, there's the L2461x Wide with a similar form-factor as the L2361p Wide, but a 23.6 inch screen with multi-touch capabilities. This one also sports stereo speakers with mic, a 4-port USB hub, and 2.0 MP web-camera. It takes input from HDMI 1.3, DVI, and D-Sub. This display is priced at $550. The others are yet to be listed.

Active Media Products Introduces DOM Lineup with Nine New SATA DOMs

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Mar 15th, 2010 03:45 Discuss (2 Comments)

Active Media Products, a leading manufacturer of SSDs and USB drives, today announced a new line of SATA DOM (Disk on Module) drives that deliver substantially faster performance than PATA DOMs in embedded computing applications. They support sequential read and write speeds up to 100MB/sec and 42MB/sec respectively. "We didn't design these as a performance storage solution, yet our SATA DOMs appear to be the fastest DOMs on the market by a long shot. So any embedded applications that need a little more pep from the drive would benefit from these." said Active Media Products VP of Sales, Jerry Thomson.

A DOM, also referred to as an FDM (Flash Disk Module), is a small flash based storage drive that plugs directly into an industry standard port on most motherboards. These nine new SATA DOM products include three different mounting options: two 7-pin tall DOMs and a 22-pin low profile DOM, each offered in 8GB, 16GB and 32GB capacities. Because they are SATA compliant, they can be easily adapted to virtually any application including embedded computers, industrial computers, and networking and military applications. Their industry standard Serial ATA interface and very small dimensions make them easy to design in.

ASRock Announces UCC-Featuring 890GX Extreme3 Motherboard

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Mar 12th, 2010 09:59 Discuss (25 Comments)

Do you desire for a free CPU upgrade? Of course, you do! ASRock Inc. today launched the UCC [Unlock CPU Core] Series motherboard that delivers added core processing power by enabling the ASRock exclusive UCC function of the AMD CPUs. Unprecedentedly integrated with ASRock exclusive UCC Chip, ASRock UCC function is well-designed to provide extra performance boost on ASRock UCC Series motherboards. In conjunction with AMD's 8XX Series chipsets, ASRock 890GX Extreme3 motherboard, the first UCC series motherboard, comes with unique UCC feature and supports both advanced rendering from HD 4290, DX10.1 graphics technology and ATI Quad CrossFireX, 3-Way CrossFireX technologies.

Equipped with an exclusive ASRock UCC Chip, ASRock 890GX Extreme3 is able to support the excellent UCC function. ASRock UCC feature allows users to enjoy an instant performance boost by simply tuning on the UCC switch on BIOS. ASRock 890GX Extreme3 is the ASRock True 333 series motherboards. The board offers the latest SATA3 6.0Gb/s and USB 3.0 5.0Gb/s technologies from the industry-leading NEC support. The real I/O includes 1 x external SATA3 connector through the Bundled eSATA3 Bracket and 2 x USB 3.0 ports for 10X faster data transfer speed. For memory part, it supports 4 X DDR3 1800(OC), Hyper Transport Bus 5200 MT/s, ATI Quad CrossFireX and 3-Way CrossFireX. For audio aspect, it features 7.1 CH, VIA 2020 audio codec with Premium Blu-ray audio support. Combined with advanced rendering from AMD Radeon HD 4290, DX10.1 graphics, ASRock 890GX Extreme3 offers the spectacular visual output (output options include: D-Sub, DVI-D, HDMI) as well.

MSI Announces GE700 Performance Notebook

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Mar 12th, 2010 07:33 Discuss (3 Comments)

MSI's newest 17" gaming notebook-the GE700, just made its debut. It comes equipped with Intel's latest core i5 processor with ATI Radeon HD 5730 discrete graphics card (with 1GB DDR3 VRAM), two cinema-class speakers and a subwoofer, a HD webcam, and dual hard disk architecture, so you can install two hard drives for maximum memory storage. Its superior multimedia, entertainment, and processing capabilities maximize your experience.

MSI Marketing Director Sam Chern points out that the MSI GE700, a 17" gaming and entertainment laptop, utilizes Intel Turbo Boost Technology for dynamic enhanced processing efficiency, a high-end discrete graphics card to increase image processing performance, and cutting-edge SRS Premium Sound. Furthermore, the GE700 boasts MSI's exclusive ECO Engine Power Saving Technology, Cinema Pro, and GPU Boost Technology to give you just the right amount of battery power you need for the task at hand.

Arctic Cooling Announces Accelero XTREME Cooler for Radeon HD 5970 and HD 5870

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Mar 12th, 2010 07:27 Discuss (25 Comments)

The Swiss low noise cooling solution provider ARCTIC COOLING today announced the launch of two VGA coolers - the Accelero XTREME 5970 and Accelero XTREME 5870. These two 3-fan solutions are tailor-made for ATI Radeon HD5970 / HD5870. They follow the sophisticated design of the Accelero XTREME series, offering the best cooling for these high-end graphics cards.

Both models are equipped with three 92mm PWM fans running from 900 to 2,000 RPM, generating 81 CFM airflow for efficient heat dissipation from the core(s). The Accelero XTREME 5970 is designed with an 8-heatpipe and 119-fin architecture to achieve 300 watts cooling for the dual-GPU Radeon HD5970. Whereas the Accelero XTREME 5870 comes with 5 heatpipes and 84 fins, providing 250 watts cooling capacity for the Radeon HD5870. A layer of the ARCTIC MX-2 thermal compound is also pre-applied on the base of these two coolers.

Inno3D Ready to Ship GeForce 400 Series Graphics Accelerators

Mar 12th, 2010 04:26 Discuss (98 Comments)

Here are some delicious pictures of Inno3D's dispatch of GeForce GTX 400 series graphics cards, that are ready to ship. Come 26th March, and box-loads of these will reach markets all over. Initially inventories of GeForce 400 series cards across board partners could be low, but it is normal for a new GPU to have small inventories initially, which iron out in a few fortnights' time. Inno3D's accelerators most likely adhere to NVIDIA's reference designs.

Creative Announces Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD and USB Sound Blaster X-Fi HD Audio

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Mar 12th, 2010 01:15 Discuss (124 Comments)

Creative Technology Ltd. today announced the PCI-E Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD and USB Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi HD, setting the gold standard for PC audio with the first discrete audio card and USB digital audio system to include THX TruStudio PC audio technology.

"The Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD and Sound Blaster X-Fi HD provide the highest quality audio playback of any sound products we have ever introduced, over a period of time where we have sold more than 400 million Sound Blaster cards," said Steve Erickson, Vice President and General Manager of Audio and Video at Creative. "We are thrilled to announce that our newest additions to the Sound Blaster line include THX TruStudio PC audio technology, bringing together two of the most respected names in sound quality to provide an unparalleled audio experience on the PC."

MSI HD 5870 Lightning Review

Review Graphics Cards

MSI's new R5870 Lightning is designed with the hardcore overclocker in mind. It comes with more PWM phases, noise free coils, voltage measurement points, an overclock out of the box and software voltage change support via Afterburner. But is that enough to satisfy the demanding enthusiast crowd?

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AMD Phenom II X6 'Thuban' and Phenom II X4 'Zosma' Tabled on Roadmaps

Mar 11th, 2010 14:30 Discuss (49 Comments)

A list of new Phenom II series processors were tabled in a company road map. The road map confirms AMD's naming scheme for the Phenom II X6 brand, and also sheds light on a new line of quad-core processors. In the second quarter of this year, AMD will introduce Phenom II X6 six-core models 1075T, 1055T, and 1035T. While the 1075T has a TDP of 125W, the 1055T comes in 125W and 95W variants (likely one following the other), and 1035T is the slowest model with 95W TDP. All Phenom II X6 models are based on the Thuban core (a desktop, socket AM3 implementation of the Istanbul die). Each of the six cores has 128 KB of L1, 512 KB L2 caches, and a 6 MB L3 cache is shared between all cores. The HyperTransport 3.0 interconnect operates at 4.8 GT/s.

The new line of quad-core processors here, is the Phenom II X4 900T series. The first member in this series is the Phenom II X4 960T. These processors are created using Thuban dies by disabling two cores. It helps AMD salvage its foundry produce with minor defects, and also target lower price points. The resulting die is codenamed "Zosma". Zosma in X4 960T has a TDP of 95W. Probably it has a lower clock speed than the "Deneb" Phenom II X4 965, but is placed in the same league, in terms of performance. One of its biggest "unintentional" unique selling points is that since it's based on a die that has six physical cores, some customers could get lucky by unlocking them to a six-core processor, at a much lower price-point. Even as several motherboard manufacturers have innovated ways to unlock disabled cores, and are advertising their unlocking features, it is not guaranteed that a Zosma would unlock into Thuban, just as Callisto/Heka to Deneb unlocking doesn't always work out. Going by AMD's road map, these processors will be released some time in May.

Khronos Announces OpenGL 4.0 Specifications

Mar 11th, 2010 11:33 Discuss (15 Comments)

The Khronos group, at the Game Developers Conference, announced the OpenGL 4.0 API specifications. OpenGL 4.0 is set to rival DirectX 11 in being able to make use of hardware tessellation offered by this generation's GPUs, drawing of data generated by OpenGL, OpenCL, or other external APIs without any intervention from the CPU, support for 64-bit Double Precision Floating Point shader operations, and a number of performance improvements. OpenGL is a multi-platform API that can run on operating environments such as Windows, Linux, Mac OS, certain gaming consoles, as well as a low-resource API for mobile devices. A list of main feature changes in OpenGL 4.0 are as follows:

Two new shader stages that enable the GPU to offload geometry tessellation from the CPU
Per-sample fragment shaders and programmable fragment shader input positions for increased rendering quality and anti-aliasing flexibility
Drawing of data generated by OpenGL, or external APIs such as OpenCL, without CPU intervention
Shader subroutines for significantly increased programming flexibility;
Separation of texture state and texture data through the addition of a new object type called sampler objects
64-bit double precision floating point shader operations and inputs/outputs for increased rendering accuracy and quality
Performance improvements, including instanced geometry shaders, instanced arrays, and a new timer query

I-O Data Intros 12x Blu-ray Writer Drive

Mar 11th, 2010 11:17 Discuss (15 Comments)

I-O Data introduced a new internal Blu-ray disc writer that burns 25 GB and 50 GB Blu-ray discs at speeds of up to 12x. Specific to the media, the drive has write speeds of 12x for BD-R, 2x for BR-RE, 16x for DVD-R, 12x for DVD-RAM, 8x for DVD-R/DVD+R DL and DVD+R, 6x for DVD-RW, 48x for CD-R and 24x for CD-RW. The drive uses SATA interface, and has a buffer of 4 MB. It is backed by 1 year warranty, and is priced at US $315.

Galaxy Dual GTS 250 Accelerator Tested

Mar 11th, 2010 08:34 Discuss (52 Comments)

Galaxy's graphics card in the works that uses two GeForce GTS 250 GPUs has finally taken shape. Galaxy designed this card out of NVIDIA's specifications, from scratch. The company also designed a cooler that uses two GPU heatsinks, each with spirally-projecting aluminum fins, with its own 80 mm fan, and a heatsink over other parts of the card such as memory and VRM. The card draws power from two 6-pin power connectors. It has 512 MB of GDDR3 memory per GPU.

Out of the box, the card comes with clock speeds of 600/1500/1000 MHz (core/shader/memory). With the bundled Galaxy Magic Panel HD software, it can be overclocked further. In a certain test, clock speeds of 675/1000/1696 MHz were used. A 3DMark Vantage run with Performance preset yielded a score of P13964. In the pictures, the piece of PCB sticking out next to the PCI-Express interface is a rudimentary spacer. It won't be present on retail cards.

Razer Reaffirms Commitment to Support Mac Users

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Mar 11th, 2010 07:41 Discuss (7 Comments)

Today at the Game Developers Conference, Razer, the world's leading manufacturer of high-end precision gaming and lifestyle peripherals, announced an effort to increase support for Mac users by issuing driver support for all upcoming Razer products, including the Razer StarCraft II peripheral suite.

"I'm very proud to say that at Razer, we are committed to supporting both Mac and PC gamers," said Robert "Razerguy" Krakoff, president, Razer USA. "We are constantly working to increase driver support for Mac with our existing Razer products and have plans to release all of our new products with dedicated Mac and PC drivers. This is a really exciting opportunity to expand the gaming industry and make it more inclusive for Mac users by providing the same level of support that we give to our PC users."

Intel Lets Loose Core i7 980X Performance Evaluations

Mar 11th, 2010 07:27 Discuss (70 Comments)

On the occasion of Game Developers Conference, an annual conclave of game developers, in San Fransisco, USA, Intel previewed to audiences its latest Core i7 980X Extreme Edition six-core processor. This meant that the media could publish performance evaluations of the new processor. Intel seems to have pulled it off with this launch. There is a broad consensus among the media that the six-core processor has a performance incentive with most of today's multi-threaded application that scales up well compared to quad-core processors.

The 980X is also the first high-performance processor based on the 32 nm Westmere architecture. The processor is able to maintain a TDP rating of 130W, on par with its 45 nm Nehalem quad-core counterparts. It has six cores operating at 3.33 GHz, with HyperThreading technology enabled, there are 12 logical CPUs (threads) for the operating system to deal with. Each core has 64 KB L1, 256 KB L2 caches, while a large 12 MB L3 cache is shared between all the cores. The Core i7 980X comes in the LGA-1366 package. Most existing motherboards with the Intel X58 Express chipset will be able to support it with a BIOS update. Intel will formally release the processor by April, at an estimated price of US $999.

WD Announces New My Passport AV Portable Media Drives

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Mar 11th, 2010 06:51 Discuss (0 Comments)

WD, the world's leader in external storage solutions, today introduced its new My Passport AV portable media drives. Designed specifically for video storage and playback, the new My Passport AV portable media drives deliver a plug-and-play experience for digital media enthusiasts. Available now at select retailers and WD's online store, the My Passport AV portable media drive is offered with 320 GB of capacity.

A large and increasing number of game consoles, camcorders, TVs, DVRs, Blu-ray players and media players, including the WD TV Media Player family, allow consumers to connect a USB drive and play the multimedia content from the drive on an HD TV. The My Passport AV portable media drive is designed to meet the requirements of this demanding video streaming environment. It delivers the formatting and low-power consumption that assures out-of-the-box compatibility with many leading CE (consumer electronics) devices.

NZXT Hades Review

Review Cases

The Hades is part of the Crafted Series and features four fans, a temperature LCD display along with a very edgy, industrial design. The interior is all black and NZXT has chosen a unique approach by having nine 5.25 inch bays and multiple rails for 3.5 inch drives.

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OCZ Technology Makes Solid State Storage Affordable with Onyx SSDs

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Mar 10th, 2010 11:38 Discuss (52 Comments)

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory and flash-based storage as an alternative to hard disk drives (HDDs), today unveiled the OCZ Onyx SATA II 2.5" Solid State Drive (SSD) Series, an ultra-affordable MultiLevel Cell (MLC)-based solid state storage solution designed for consumers looking to take advantage of flash-based storage technology. Offering a faster and more durable alternative to traditional hard drives in a cost-efficient SSD, the Onyx delivers reliable performance without the high price normally associated with SSD drives.

"As new technologies become available, OCZ continues to expand both our enterprise and consumer SSD lines, and one of our goals is to make SSDs more affordable to end-users. Our new Onyx series SSD does exactly that and is a perfect solution for netbooks, laptops, or home desktop PCs," commented Ryan Petersen, CEO of the OCZ Technology Group. "Designed to offer the best of both worlds, the new OCZ Onyx SSD delivers the speed and reliability of solid state storage to mainstream consumers at an aggressive price point that makes the technology more accessible to customers who want to take advantage of all the benefits of the SSDs without incurring the high cost normally associated with the solution."

Buffalo Intros HD-PVRU2 Portable HDDs with Turbo USB Technology

Mar 10th, 2010 06:56 Discuss (2 Comments)

Buffalo Technology released its newest line of portable hard drives, the HD-PVRU2 series. While the drive looks like almost any other portable hard drive from Buffalo, for a change it has a rugged matte finish. The HD-PVRU2 comes in capacities of 320 GB and 500 GB. It measures 81 (W) x 16 (H) x 130 (D) mm, and weighs 190 g. It draws power from, and connects to the system using USB 2.0 interface. A proprietary Turbo USB technology aims to squeeze the most out of USB 2.0, with some higher transfer speeds. The bundled ecoManager software spins down the drive when idle. The 320GB and 500GB models will be priced at $100 and $150, respectively, in Japan.

OWC Announces Mercury Elite-AL Pro - 2.5 inch 1.0TB External Storage Solutions

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Mar 10th, 2010 04:22 Discuss (4 Comments)

Other World Computing, a leading zero emissions Mac and PC technology company, announced today its OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro mini is the first 2.5" 1TB "Quad Interface" bus powered portable storage solution on the market and available for immediate ordering with 10 models priced from $119.99. Featuring a "Quad Interface" of FireWire 800/400, USB 2.0, and eSATA interface connectivity for data transfer speeds up to 300MB/s, the fanless Mercury Elite-AL Pro mini delivers high performance storage/backup to Mac or PC users in a portable, brushed aluminum, no AC adapter required Plug and Play footprint.

In addition to the new 1TB model, the Mercury Elite-AL Pro mini is available in nine other "Quad Interface" models offering a variety of speed, capacity, and drive type options:

ASUS Unveils Cine5 Compact 5.1 Channel Sound Bar

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Mar 10th, 2010 03:42 Discuss (7 Comments)

ASUS announced the launch of the ASUS Cine5 PC speaker which provides accurate 5-channel surround sound in personalized spaces such as study rooms. With its all-in-one design, the Cine5 delivers realistic and dynamic surround sound to satisfy consummate gamers and personal entertainment users. To deliver exceptionally full sound from a compact form factor, ASUS drew on its expertise in high-performance audio cards during the development.

The Cine5 is the first PC speaker in the world to offer leading surround sound presence with the new "Embracing Sound Theatre HD" technology. This patented technology leverages on a discrete 5-channel output to deliver full audio surround, which users can experience whenever they are directly in front of the speaker. In a First Player Shooter game, the Cine5 provides precise sound location that improves shooting accuracy and heightens gaming thrills. The Cine5 also revives 5-channel audio from any down-mixed 2-channel source-for a high-fidelity, multi-channel sound during PC gaming or movie sessions.

GeForce 196.78 Beta Driver Runs GeForce GTX 470

Mar 10th, 2010 03:33 Discuss (24 Comments)

Czech technology website PCTuning confirmed a few details about NVIDIA's upcoming performance graphics accelerator, the GeForce GTX 470. It was found out that a beta driver by NVIDIA, GeForce 196.78 supports GeForce 400 series accelerators, and was able run a qualification sample of GeForce GTX 470. The card was using A3 revision GF100 silicon. The driver's System Information dialog revealed that the card indeed has 448 CUDA cores (SIMD units). Further, it has 1280 MB of memory, and a 320-bit wide memory interface. NVIDIA also changed the way it represents memory clock speeds. Since it is using GDDR5 memory, while the memory has an actual clock speed of 1000 MHz, the data rate (DDR speed) is represented first, as 2000 MHz, and "effective speed" next, which is 4000 MHz.

Given these speeds, at 1000 MHz GDDR5, the GPU has a memory bandwidth of 160 GB/s. Without compromise on looks and quality, NVIDIA kept the cooler design basic. It has a matte finish. Display outputs include two DVI-D, and one mini HDMI. It supports NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround (a technology competitive to ATI Eyefinity, to span a display head across multiple physical displays), just that NVIDIA requires at least two accelerators in SLI to use it. NVIDIA's GeForce 400 series graphics accelerators will be launched on the 26th of this month.

Lian Li PC-T1R Spider Case Review

Review Cases

Here's Lian Li being Lian Li. The PC-T1 is an open mini-ITX chassis, which is one of the most wacky cases on the planet: it looks like a spider when assembled. Being the case that it is, we wanted to look into the belly of the beast and see if the menacing looks are coupled with the kind of engineering required to pull such a design off.

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ASUS EAH 5850 TOP DirectCU Review

Review Graphics Cards

ASUS has released what seems to be one of the best custom designed HD 5850s. The card which supports DirectX 11 and Eyefinity is extremely quiet, offers better price/performance than the AMD reference design, comes with an overclock out of the box and supports voltage control via SmartDoctor.

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Dell Unveils Next-Generation Precision M4500 Mobile Workstation

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Mar 9th, 2010 12:18 Discuss (4 Comments)

For those with the passion to discover, imagine and create the future, "on-the-go" access to workstation-class computing provides the freedom to work wherever inspiration strikes. This passion to create is why Dell continues to push the boundaries of workstation performance and mobility with the announcement today of the world's most powerful 15.6-inch mobile workstation¹-the Dell Precision M4500.

The Dell Precision M4500 joins Dell's family of mobile workstations, which includes the world's most powerful 17 inch mobile workstation, the Dell Precision M6500. The new mobile workstation is designed to liberate creative professionals, designers, animators, engineers and research scientists from their desks. The M4500 also supports the missions of defense customers who require mobile workstation performance and security, including authentication and data encryption, when in the field.

Newegg Puts an End to Counterfeit CPU Saga

Mar 9th, 2010 10:32 Discuss (32 Comments)

The controversy surrounding Newegg's shipment of counterfeit Intel Core i7 920 processors to some customers has finally met its logical conclusion, with Newegg disposing facts and making great headway in resolving the issue with affected customers. In a statement to HardOCP.com, Newegg said that it is conducting a thorough investigation in collaboration with Intel and law-enforcement agencies, to get to the bottom of how counterfeit merchandise could get into its supply chain.

Another major revelation here is that Newegg named IPEX as the supplier behind the merchandise, and not another supplier called D&H Distributing, which the media was fairly confident in alleging for this controversy. The said company earlier issued cease and desist orders to those media sources for misinformation and wrongfully dragging it into the issue.

The supplier, IPEX, had initially told Newegg that it had accidentally shipped "demo boxes", a keyword Newegg adopted in its initial press statement and communications to affected customers. In course of time, it was found out that these so-called demo boxes indeed were counterfeits. Newegg has terminated its business relations with IPEX. Sections of the media which named D&H Distributing in the controversy tendered their apologies.

Silicon Power Unveils Touch 810 Flash Drives

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Mar 9th, 2010 07:30 Discuss (0 Comments)

Silicon Power, one of the world's leading flash memory manufacturers announced today (3/9) the "Metal Aesthetic" Touch 830. The design of Touch 830 inherits Silicon Power's Touch series good looks, class and ultra thin design. However, the new Touch 830 has been given an extra touch of Northern European flavor. Combining art and technology, its design features icy-silver casing, natural looks and simplicity, it complies with Europe designer's conception of "A Mature Design is the Perfection Design". The simplicity and humble design of Touch 830 reflects the Northern European's way of life, attracting just the right amount of attention while keeping it simple and elegant.

For the perfect combination of looks and function practicality, the Touch 830 utilizes a reinforced one-body stainless steel casing construction. The one body construction allows for a small and rugged design. Practicality wise, the Touch 830 is plug and play compatible, users need not push lids, slide lids or supply additional power to operate. It is light, ultra small and comes with a jewelry lace for users to carry. Especially suited for people constantly on the go, Silicon Power's Touch 830 is available up to 16 GB of storage space so users can store data at will. For users who fancy the Northern European styling, Silicon Power's Touch 830 is the perfect storage you just got to get your hands on.

Dell Celebrates Entrepreneurial Spirit with New Vostro Laptops

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Mar 9th, 2010 07:21 Discuss (2 Comments)

Following the successful launch of the ultrathin and light Vostro V13, Dell is offering business customers even more choice with the stylish Vostro 3000 series - a range of new thin, lightweight and durable laptop computers. Featuring powerful processors, high-end graphics and built-in security, the Vostro 3000 series is designed for small businesses that require robust mobile computing solutions.

Today's SMBs and entrepreneurs want notebooks that are powerful and attractive, and the new Vostro 3000 series was designed to meet and exceed both those needs. For the most demanding tasks, the Vostro 3000 series sports the latest powerful Intel Core processor technology, including, the optional, Core i7 Quad Core processor available on the Vostro 3700. For those that demand portability and productivity, the Vostro 3300 is one of the industry's thinnest commercial 13" laptop with an integrated optical drive. For those that can't afford to be chained to their desks, the 14" Vostro 3400 offers a full day of mobile productivity with up to 8 hours of battery life with an optional 9-cell battery.

A-DATA Releases microSDHC Class 10 Memory Cards

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Mar 9th, 2010 06:53 Discuss (3 Comments)

A-DATA Technology Co., Ltd., the worldwide leader in DRAM memory and Flash application products, today announced the addition of microSDHC Class 10 memory cards to its product lineup. Besides high capacity, this new Class 10 card further brings users with unrivaled data transfer performance, providing a total upgrade solution ideal for the latest generation of mobile phones that come with a card slot.

Compliant with the SD Association Specification v3.00 to meet Class 10 requirements, A-DATA microSDHC Class 10 memory cards outperform others by delivering up to 16 MB/s in read and 10 MB/s in write, which is 1.6 times faster than the preceding Class 6 cards. Such impressive performance allows users to be able to enjoy the versatility and advanced multimedia features of the prevailing smartphones; recording continuous high-definition videos, transferring music files or running multiple applications on mobile devices cannot get any easier with the new speed class offered by A-DATA.

Gigabyte Closes ASUS' Motherboard Shipment Lead, Could Trigger Price War

Mar 9th, 2010 04:53 Discuss (32 Comments)

According to industry sources, motherboard major Gigabyte is closing the gap between it and ASUS in terms of motherboard shipments, so much so, that the two industry giants could entangle in a price-war. Gigabyte's shipments are estimated by market observers to have reached 3.1 to 3.3 million in the first two months of 2010, while that of ASUS for the same period were estimated to be 3.2 to 3.3 million.

To maintain its vulnerable lead, ASUS may shortly cut prices across the board and that could trigger a price-war in the motherboard industry, say sources in channel vendors. ASUS is currently planning to reshuffle some of its staff in the motherboard business unit. While ASUS refused to comment in this issue, Gigabyte said that the estimates concerning it are very close to the company's internal figures.

ASUS Unveils Innovative New Cloud Computing Solutions

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Mar 9th, 2010 04:27 Discuss (2 Comments)

ASUS has unveiled a comprehensive suite of portable, multimedia, and productivity solutions that places it at the forefront of cloud computing. ASUS strives to offer optimized cloud computing experiences by harnessing innovation and a broad range of cloud-enabled solutions. Professionals can enhance their productivity with access to real-time applications while on the go. At home, the entire family can enjoy rich multimedia entertainment with cloud-optimized solutions and services.

MSI Unveils the X-Slim X360 Notebook Featuring Intel Core i5 ULV Processor

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Mar 9th, 2010 04:14 Discuss (8 Comments)

MSI's X-Slim X360, with the Intel Arrandale ULV processor, comes equipped with the Intel Core i5 processor with Intel's Turbo Boost and Hyper-Threading technology for excellent processing performance and up to 9 hours of battery life. Graced with MSI's exclusive stylish rhombic pattern, the X360 is the apex in slim computer technology.

The X360, the latest step in the evolution of MSI's beautiful X-Slim series of notebooks, comes with the Intel Arrandale ULV processor to provide outstanding performance with a longer-lasting, more environmentally friendly battery. The X360 comes with the Intel Core i5 processor with Intel Turbo Boost and Hyper-Threading technology. The Intel HM55 chipset gives the X360 high-quality audio/video performance and 9 hours of ultra-long battery life.

Spire Announces TherMax Eclipse II CPU Cooler

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Mar 8th, 2010 15:51 Discuss (25 Comments)

Following the success of the original DT heat-pipe TherMax series, we're proudly introducing the TherMax Eclipse II. Powered by Innovation and with awesome looks this CPU Cooler is one supreme performer. Equipped with five 8mm Direct Touch U-Shaped sintered powder heat-pipes combined with black-nickel coated stamped heat-sink fins to best preserve killer looks. The TherMax Eclipse II is ready to best cool the extreme hot 130W to 150W Micro-processors made by Intel and AMD.

Universally compatible with the Intel 1156/1366/775 platforms in combination with the AMD AM3/AM2/940/939 platforms giving professionals and gamers a huge scope to utilize this impressive Diablo. Another welcome new feature are the possibility of mounting two fans simultaneously for even better cooling results. Simply installed with the included Anti-vibe rubber fan mounts installation is made tool-free and easy. This towering cooler is build to deliver the best thermal performance - guaranteed.

Valve to Deliver Steam and Source on Mac

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Mar 8th, 2010 15:42 Discuss (92 Comments)

Valve announced today it will bring Steam, Valve's gaming service, and Source, Valve's gaming engine, to the Mac. Steam and Valve's library of games including Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal, and the Half-Life series will be available in April. "As we transition from entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service, customers and developers need open, high-quality Internet clients," said Gabe Newell, President of Valve. "The Mac is a great platform for entertainment services."

"Our Steam partners, who are delivering over a thousand games to 25 million Steam clients, are very excited about adding support for the Mac," said Jason Holtman, Director of Business Development at Valve. "Steamworks for the Mac supports all of the Steamworks APIs, and we have added a new feature, called Steam Play, which allows customers who purchase the product for the Mac or Windows to play on the other platform free of charge. For example, Steam Play, in combination with the Steam Cloud, allows a gamer playing on their work PC to go home and pick up playing the same game at the same point on their home Mac. We expect most developers and publishers to take advantage of Steam Play."

OCZ Portable USB 3.0 Storage Device Gets Named

Mar 8th, 2010 10:16 Discuss (6 Comments)

OCZ Technology has been working on a storage solution that takes advantage of the USB 3.0 SuperSpeed interface for a while. It's just got a little closer to seeing the light of the day at CeBIT. The OCZ Enyo is a device that's roughly the size of a compact portable HDD that you can carry in your pocket, except that it's a flash-based device, and uses USB 3.0. The Enyo offers data storage in three capacities (variants): 64 GB, 128 GB, and 256 GB. It measures 56 x 120 x 10 mm, and relies on the USB 3.0 interface for power and connectivity. Being a flash-based solid state storage device, it is expected to have high transfer speeds, and inherently, the incentive of low access times and higher durability since it lacks moving parts. Back in January, on the occasion of CES, in a preview by LegitReviews, working prototypes the device was found to offer read-write speeds of 188.2 MB/s (read) and 130 MB/s (write). CAD drawings of the Enyo with its logo emerged.

Intel Steps into Alleged Counterfeit Core i7 920 Sale Issue

Mar 8th, 2010 09:02 Discuss (104 Comments)

After last week's report on some of Newegg.com's customers receiving what the store calls "demo boxes" that it described to have been accidentally shipped by one of its "long term partners", Intel stepped in with a clarification on how it looks at these anomalies. In a statement to HardOCP.com, Intel's Dan Snyder said "Intel has been made aware of the potential for counterfeit i7 920 packages in the marketplace and is working to how many and/or where they are being sold. The examples we have seen are not Intel products but are counterfeits. Buyers should contact their place of purchase for a replacement and/or should contact their local law enforcement agency if the place of purchase refuses to help."

The "examples" Intel is referring to in the statement are these so-called "demo boxes", apparently 300 of them, which could be out on the loose. Meanwhile, Newegg.com is making efforts to get in touch with each of the affected customers and rush-delivering genuine merchandise or providing 100% refund, depending on what the customer chooses. While the whole episode seems to have taken a toll on Newegg's image as one of the most reliable, efficient, and competitive online retailers which it built over years, in the line of fire seems to be its "long term partner", a certain distributor in charge of these Intel processors. The same company sent cease and desist letters to some online publications to withdraw their reports on this issue, blaming them for publishing "untrue statements" about it. However Intel's statement adds clarity to the issue. Indeed some customers may have received "counterfeits", and indeed there are no such things as "demo boxes", at least as far as Intel is concerned. That said, whoever is behind these "demo boxes" still stands to face the law for infringement and imitation of Intel's product design, and trying to profit from it.

Sceptre Unveils X270W 27-inch HD LCD Monitor

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Mar 8th, 2010 08:25 Discuss (6 Comments)

Sceptre, world class manufacturers of high-quality TV and PC monitors, has just released its 27-inchtrue 1080p LCD widescreen PC monitors featuring industry-impressive 60,000:1 contrast ratios and ultra-fast 2 ms response times for a morerealistic and advanced PC gaming experience.

"In the crowded LCD display space, the jaw-dropping performance and stylish design of our monitors are second to none," said Cathy Chou, vice president of operations, Sceptre. "Specifically designed for the PC gaming community, the unparalleled quality of our high-def monitors creates a more life-like gaming experience that is a cut above the rest. Plus,its energy saving attributes make gamers feel better about indulging in their favorite pastime."

Intel to Introduce 8-core Xeon Nehalem-EX, 6-core Westmere-EP Processors This Month

Mar 8th, 2010 07:20 Discuss (25 Comments)

Intel is set to introduce a series of eight-core Xeon server processors later this month, that are capable of running in four-socket servers. With HyperThreading technology enabled, each core can handle two threads, taking the logical CPU count on such servers up to 64. Each Nehalem-EX chip has 8 CPU cores with dedicated L2 caches of 256 KB, a shared L3 cache of 24 MB, and Turbo Boost technology that helps conserve power while also stepping up performance when needed. The die also features a memory controller with four DDR3 memory channels. Being based on the Nehalem architecture, the chips are built on the 45 nm HKMG process.

In related news, Intel will also introduce Westmere-EP processors later this month. These chips will be based on the 32 nm Westmere architecture, and are likely to have 6 cores, up to 12 logical CPUs per chip, 12 MB of L3 cache and three DDR3 memory channels. These chips will be suited for two-socket servers and workstations.

Acer Packs Instant OS and WiFi into HD Monitor

Mar 8th, 2010 07:04 Discuss (4 Comments)

Without making much noise, Acer introduced its new D241H LCD monitor. This one stands out of being yet another 24" HD-ready PC display, in having its own instant-on operating system, and WiFi. Its built in OS lets you do some very basic tasks such as web-browsing, media playback (music and videos), and browsing through photos, without needing a PC. It can connect to the internet over both wired Ethernet and WiFi. As a monitor, the 24-inch panel has a native resolution of 1920x1080 pixels with a response time of 2 ms, and dynamic contrast ratio of 80,000:1. Display inputs include DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI. Other accessories built into it include a 2-port USB 2.0 hub and a multi-format memory card reader - both of which are of use to its OS, and can also be used by the PC it's connected to. Alas for what this 'monitor' is trying to be, a built-in webcam, and speakers are missing (standard issue on many premium displays). Pricing and availability are not known as yet. Finer details can be found on the product page.

QNAP Expands Business Series with New 4-drive Rack Mounted NAS Servers

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Mar 8th, 2010 06:37 Discuss (1 Comment)

QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading manufacturer of world class NAS servers, NVR Video Surveillance Systems, and Network-based Video Players today expanded their popular Business Series Turbo NAS lineup with two new 1U rack-mounted, 4-drive models, the TS-459U-RP and TS-459U-SP. These new models, with up to 8TB of storage (using 2TB hard drives), have been certified as compatible with VMware's vSphere4 (ESX 4.0) virtualization platform, ideal for departmental file sharing, storage, and advanced server applications in the office environment. VMware's vSphere is the industry's first cloud operating system that offers a way to reduce IT costs and increase responsiveness. Shared networked storage is an essential component of a cloud computing infrastructure. The TS-459U-RP and TS-459U-SP incorporate the Intel Atom D-510 1.66Ghz dual-core processor and feature 1GB of DDRII RAM , delivering exceptional performance and high reliability for multiple concurrent tasks and intensive data transfer with lower power consumption. Businesses of all sizes are able to enjoy the interoperability between VMware virtual machines and QNAP high performance storage to take the advantages of VMware cloud computing environments.

ASUS Combines NVIDIA ION with USB 3.0 on New EeeBox

Mar 8th, 2010 04:15 Discuss (4 Comments)

In ASUS' latest entry into its EeeBox series of nettops, the company adds support for USB 3.0, with the unit featuring two SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ports. The EeeBox EB1501U is about the shape and size of any variant in its series. It uses first-generation NVIDIA ION platform, with Intel Atom 330 dual-core processor, 2 GB of DDR2 memory, GeForce 9400M graphics, 320 GB hard drive, slot-in DVD writer, gigabit Ethernet, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, and a USB 3.0 controller. Other connectivity features include eSATA, USB 2.0, and display connectivity including HDMI and D-Sub.

AMD Open Physics Initiative Expands Ecosystem with Free DMM for Game Production

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Mar 8th, 2010 04:06 Discuss (34 Comments)

AMD today announced that, along with partners Pixelux Entertainment and Bullet Physics, it has added significant support to the Open Physics ecosystem by providing game developers with access to the newest version of the Pixelux Digital Molecular Matter (DMM), a breakthrough in physics simulation. In addition, to enabling a superior development experience and helping to reduce time to market, Pixelux has tightly integrated its technology, DMM, with Bullet Physics, allowing developers to integrate physics simulation into game titles that run on both OpenCL- and DirectCompute-capable platforms. And both DMM and Bullet work with Trinigy's Vision Engine to create and visualize physics offerings in-game.

"Establishing an open and affordable physics development environment is an important accomplishment for both game developers and gamers, signaling a move away from exclusionary or proprietary approaches," said Eric Demers, chief technology officer, AMD Graphics Division. "Not only does the integration of Bullet Physics into partner middleware help drive broader adoption of physics in games, it ensures that when those games are released, all gamers, regardless of the hardware in their PC, can benefit from the more realistic experience enabled by those effects."

Foxconn Intros AMD 890GX-based Digital Life Series Motherboards

Mar 8th, 2010 03:58 Discuss (6 Comments)

OEM major Foxconn made additions to its own channel brand of motherboards with two Digital Lifes series models based on the AMD 890GX chipset, supporting socket AM3 processors. The nearly identical Foxconn Digital Life A9DA-S and A9DA (pictured in the same order below), are ATX boards building on the features the chipset provides. The CPU is powered by an 8-phase VRM. The AMD 890GX embeds an ATI Radeon HD 4290 class IGP with 128 MB (+UMA) SidePort memory and connectivity which includes DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI.

Expansion slots include two each of PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x8 when both are populated), PCI-E x1, and PCI. The SB850 southbridge gives out six SATA 6 Gb/s ports. Other standard features include 8-channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet, and a number of USB 2.0 ports. The A9DA-S is the more premium variant, it has a heatsink over the CPU VRM, and a VIA 2-port FireWire controller. The two should be available in stores soon.

Active Media Products Releases 1.8-Inch PATA Turbo ZIF SSD

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Mar 8th, 2010 03:45 Discuss (0 Comments)

Active Media Products, manufacturer of SSDs and endangered species USB drives, today released new 32GB and 64GB 1.8-inch PATA ZIF SSDs that support read speeds up to 100MB/sec and, thanks to their DRAM cache, reach write speeds up to 85MB/sec. These new Turbo ZIF SSDs are available now through Amazon.

With no moving parts, SaberTooth ZT is rugged enough for use in industrial, embedded and network computing applications where a very compact yet high speed storage solution is needed. Its PATA / IDE ZIF interface supports PIO mode 4 and UDMA mode 6. It also supports SMART commands. The ZT includes excellent ECC, wear leveling and bad block management technologies that improve reliability and extend endurance. These drives have the same physical dimensions as industry standard 1.8-inch HDDs, measuring only 2.8 x 2.1 x 0.2 inches (71 x 54 x 5 mm), making them an easy plug-in replacement in many laptops and netbooks.

Shuttle Ultra Compact ION2 Nettop and External Graphic Card

Mar 6th, 2010 12:42 Discuss (16 Comments)

Shuttle caught our eye with their external graphics card system called the i-Power GXT Mini, which routes the PCIe slot (as x1) to an external enclosure in which you can put any single slot GPU with a power draw of up to 90W. The system currently only works with two Shuttle notebooks, but the company will expand the range of notebooks in the future. They are also showing off their extremely compact and fanless HTPC based on ION2. It is a bit larger than a 3.5 inch hard drive enclosure, but packs all the components. A quick look at the rear shows four USB 2.0 ports and HDMI along with the the rest of usual connectivity.

Team Group Shows Sandforce Based SSDs, New USB Drives, 2400 MHz DDR3 and SDXC

Mar 6th, 2010 12:23 Discuss (4 Comments)

Just like everyone else, they are showing off Sandforce SSDs - called Team Xtreem-S1 - with advertised speeds of 270 MB/s read and 260 MB/s write performance. It will be available in 60, 120, 250 GB capacities. On the portable storage front, they have X091 with capacities of up to 128GB in a stylish metal casing (which is not pink, just reflects that color in our picture). Then there is the X092, which has an USB connector on one side and an eSATA on the other side. The latter requires the use of a 5V power connection. We also got a glimpse at their 2400 MHz CL9 at 1.6 V dual channel kit, as well as their SDXC 32 GB and 64 GB Flash memory cards.

The Spiders Have Landed at Lian Li and They Brought Some Friends - Including Gulftown

Mar 6th, 2010 05:38 Discuss (25 Comments)

Some of you may have seen the YouTube video of the Lian Li PC-T1 Spider, which the Company is showing at the CeBIT. The unit is pretty impressive up close and personal. Besides that we got to take a look at the Lancool K62 with a white interior paint job. The chassis will is also available with a red interior. We also noticed that one of their cases was filled with high-end components, including a Gulftown CPU with six cores. Lian Li is also getting into the bench table segment and they are showing off two early prototypes of such units - one for ATX and one for ITX boards.

Silverstone SUGO SG07 ITX Case Stuffed With A Radeon HD 5970

Mar 6th, 2010 05:21 Discuss (17 Comments)

With the rise of ITX boards and their popularity, Silverstone is expanding their Sugo line-up with the SG07. The high-end ITX chassis is aimed at the LAN Party Gamer on the go, and ships with a 600W power supply along with a special 200 mm fan, which creates a clean vortex of air to cool the board. Silverstone has stuffed a Radeon HD 5970 in there along with a Zotac H55 board and an i7-860. Their engineers have gone into great detail to manage air flow and to keep temperatures in the green. On the bottom of the chassis a plastic divider blocks hot air from reaching the PSU, while the side panel sports a foam ring, which can be aligned to seal off the GPU fan and thus only give it access to cool, outside air. The case will carry a premium price tag, but offers features no other ITX case out there does at the moment.

Newegg.com Botchup Sends Several Core i7 'Demo Boxes' to Customers

Mar 6th, 2010 04:46 Discuss (75 Comments)

Newegg.com, one of America's leading online retailers of computer hardware and related sales, on its official Twitter page admitted to a botchup with one of its long-term partners that resulted in several customers who ordered Intel Core i7 processors receiving what it calls "Demo Boxes". These boxes probably are used to demonstrate what the boxes look like or weigh, or probably it's a case of "adulteration", forgery, and counterfeiting. Each of these so-called demo boxes contain a completely non-functional dummy of the processor, heatsink fan, and the instruction leaflet. When opened, the three don't really look like mockups, but when packed into the box, can easily pass off as the product.

Newegg swung into action after several customers got back to it reporting "fake Core i7 920" chips. Many of them were taken aback when their $290 investment yielded a big chunk of plastic, and a slab of metal on which is strapped on the processor's IHS. The chunk of plastic is molded roughly to the shape of an HSF, and a sticker of the HSF's top was pasted, so it could be visible from the little window on the box that lets you see the HSF. Newegg said that it has acknowledged that a number of "demo boxes" were shipped, and that its staff is working directly with each of the affected customers to resolve the issue at the earliest. It kind of begs the question: where did so many so-called demo boxes come from, and why are there so many of them?

DimasTech Bench Table V2.5 Review

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Dimastech is continously updating their Benchtable and listening to the feedback of both users and reviewers. The V2.5 simplifies many aspects of assembly, while adding new and useful features to the Benchtable. We take a close look at what it has to offer and at the improvements, to see if it is a worthy successor.

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ASRock enables ACC on AMD 8-Series Chipsets to Unlock Disabled Cores

Mar 5th, 2010 18:20 Discuss (28 Comments)

AMD ACC is a feature of the company's 7-Series chipsets which uses a debugging backchannel going from the Southbridge to the processor to change certain CPU aspects, one of them being the "disable cores" feature on modern AMD CPUs. This allows you to play the AMD Casino, go get a cheap triple core, unlock its fourth core and hope it works (it usually does).

Quick Peek at Icy Dock - Internal and External Docks and Blu-Ray Enclosure

Mar 5th, 2010 13:39 Discuss (0 Comments)

While not planned, we spontaneously stopped by the Icy Dock booth here at CeBIT and they have a few interesting products on display. First off, there is an external dock which allows you to use SATA, IDE or floppy drives. This is nothing new, but the shape of the device certainly is. Then there is an internal dual drive bay, which utilizes a single 5.25 inch bay and converts them into a single 3.5 and additional 2.5 inch hot-swappable bay. This is not only a space saver, but certainly useful as well. Last, but not least there is the external, dual 5.25 inch enclosure, which does not only look nice, but allows you to expand that ION based HTPC very nicely with additional storage an an optical drive of your choice.

Chieftec Shows Off Passive ITX Chassis And Beer Dispensing Case

Mar 5th, 2010 12:58 Discuss (18 Comments)

We also dropped by the Chieftec booth and they have some nice enclosures on display. The most interesting one is the ITX case with large heatsinks on both sides, which are attached to heatpipes. These in turn cool the CPU and chipset of an Atom ION board. Due to the inability to accommodate the different board layouts, Chieftec will be offering these cases to OEMs who will then also receive a custom cooling solution to fit the mainboard they are using. The case also features a Soundgraph VFD and slot for a slim-line optical drive. We were also witness to a computer case which dispenses beer when needed. What else could you ask for?

NVIDIA Blames OEMs for GeForce 300 Rebranding

Mar 5th, 2010 10:00 Discuss (34 Comments)

NVIDIA is weeks away from unveiling its GeForce GTX 400 series, which until a few weeks ago, was expected to be the GeForce GTX 300, by the media. Expecting that nomenclature didn't need rocket science. However, NVIDIA changed it with releasing as many as a dozen and a half SKUs in the so-called GeForce 300 series based on existing GT21x GPUs, with not much fanfare. The company got a little candid with Bit-Tech.net in an interview, in admitting that pressure from OEMs forced NVIDIA to 'create' GeForce 300 series, because OEMs wanted "something new" on their specs sheets, if they were to opt for NVIDIA's mGPUs over those from AMD, which already support DirectX 11, under the Mobility Radeon HD 5000 series. Most of these rebrands, according to the company, are specific to the OEMs, and will not be released by board partners to the retail market.

HDMI Licensing, LLC Releases HDMI Specification Version 1.4a

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Mar 5th, 2010 09:51 Discuss (21 Comments)

HDMI Licensing, LLC, the agent responsible for licensing the High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) specification, today announced, on behalf of the HDMI Founders, the release of HDMI Specification Version 1.4a featuring key enhancements for 3D applications including the addition of mandatory 3D formats for broadcast content as well as the addition of the 3D format referred to as Top-and-Bottom. The complete HDMI Specification Version 1.4a, along with the 1.4a version of the Compliance Test Specification (CTS), is available to Adopters on the HDMI Adopter Extranet.

An extraction of the 3D portion of Specification Version 1.4a is available for public download on the HDMI Website. The purpose of the extraction document is to provide public access to the 3D portion of the HDMI Specification for those companies and organizations that are not HDMI Adopters but require access to this portion of the Specification.

Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5 Pictured

Mar 5th, 2010 09:40 Discuss (32 Comments)

At the ongoing CeBIT event, Gigabyte showed off its latest offer of motherboards including an interesting one based on AMD's upcoming 890FX chipset. Made for socket AM3 processors from AMD, the GA-890FXA-UD5 is based on the AMD 890FX chipset with SB850 southbridge. It expands a little on the chipset's features. The CPU is powered by a 10-phase VRM. It is wired to four DDR3 memory slots that are powered by a 2-phase VRM. The AMD 890FX drives four PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots (electrical x8 when all are populated, x16 on alternate slots otherwise). There are two PCI-E x1 and one PCI. All six of the SATA 6 Gb/s ports from the southbridge are internal, while an additional GSATA2 controller gives out two SATA 3 Gb/s ports, and drives the IDE connector. Connectivity options include 8+2 channel audio with Dolby Home Theater, two gigabit Ethernet interfaces, FireWire, and two USB 3.0 ports, apart from a number of USB 2.0 ports. The board is expected to release later next month.

ASUS ROG Matrix HD 5870 Further Detailed

Mar 5th, 2010 09:21 Discuss (16 Comments)

ASUS has been readying its Republic of Gamers (ROG) Matrix HD 5870 graphics card. Earlier, the card was pictured fully assembled. Sources shared pictures of the card taken apart, showing its PCB and cooling assembly from the inside, which tells us a lot about this card. To begin with, ASUS engineered this card from scratch, with its own PCB and cooler designs, and choice of components. The card comes overclocked out of the box, and also promises overclocking headroom higher than the reference design. It features 2 GB of GDDR5 memory. The PCB reveals a strengthened VRM. There is a 10-phase vGPU and 2-phase vMem, with independent voltage controllers. Power is drawn in from two 8-pin power inputs.

GeForce 196.75 Drivers Overheat GPUs on Some Applications

Mar 5th, 2010 05:35 Discuss (47 Comments)

NVIDIA's recently released GeForce 196.75 WHQL drivers are causing problems with some users reporting "intermittent low FPS", in the words of Blizzard's technical staff. It notes that the drivers have a bug in its fan-speed control that causes graphics cards to overheat when running applications such as Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft and StarCraft 2 Beta. Not only does bad fan control result in bad application performance, but can also damage the graphics accelerator. Blizzard on its part advised users to revert to older versions of the GeForce driver. Version 196.21 (older WHQL-signed driver) can be downloaded from here.

Update (3/5): NVIDIA has withdrawn the 196.75 WHQL drivers from its website. The company is working to resolve this issue.

New Cases, Coolers and 3D Displays From Zalman

Mar 4th, 2010 18:39 Discuss (17 Comments)

Zalman is actually in a local hotel suite, showing off some very interesting products. They are showcasing their 3D monitor in the 21.5 inch variant with FullHD resolution. A 24 inch version can also be had, while a 27 inch LCD and a 32 inch 3D TV LCD are also in planning. We also got a good look at their upcoming VGA coolers for ATI and NVIDIA cards. Due to the different placement of GPU cores, there are now two different coolers with the same general structure. We were told, that the final NVIDIA version will be green, while the red variant is final and will be intended for ATI products.

ASUS Unveils a Host of New Products for the Gaming Community

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Mar 4th, 2010 12:50 Discuss (11 Comments)

Gaming has evolved into a leading growth industry and dynamic motivator for the technology sector, as CeBIT 2010 further illustrates. It's a massively popular pastime drawing people, all united through thrilling entertainment. ASUS shares the passion, maintaining a tradition of ingenuity aimed at meeting the needs of gamers both with the hardcore Republic of Gamers brand (ROG) and powerful mainstream solutions. It seeks to innovate and introduce new exciting ways to enjoy gaming, believing it should be natural to take up rather than complicated.

GeForce GTX 470 PCB and Cooler Pictured, Too

Mar 4th, 2010 12:15 Discuss (27 Comments)

A couple of days after pictures of the PCB and cooling assembly of the GeForce GTX 480 made it to the internet, fresh pictures emerged, this time of the GeForce GTX 470, the slightly toned-down part in the GeForce 400 series. The GTX 470, like the GTX 480, is based on NVIDIA's GF100 core. The reference design PCB is certainly shorter than that of the GTX 480, and compacts its resources. Since the GTX 470 has a 320-bit wide memory interface, it makes do with 10 memory chips, seen surrounding the GPU from three sides. A simpler VRM is used: 4-phase vGPU and 1-phase vMem. Power is drawn in from two 6-pin power connectors.

The fan connects over its usual 4-pin PWM-controlled line. Some smart compacting of components made space for two intakes to be cut out, which help the blower draw in some fresh air. The cooling assembly, again is compacted accordingly. Since these new pictures are more clear, we can see that the area over the GPU isn't devoid of a copper surface as earlier thought. In fact, as some community members observed, it is a base with copper heatpipes making direct contact with the GPU. The cooler has protrusions at the right spots to make contact with memory chips and MOSFETs. The GTX 470 is slated to be the more affordable of the GTX 400 series, which will be unveiled on March 26. Follow the source link for equally good quality photography of the GTX 480's PCB.

EVGA Names and Details its Dual-LGA1366 Enthusiast Motherboard

Mar 4th, 2010 11:51 Discuss (29 Comments)

EVGA today named its dual-LGA1366 enthusiast-grade motherboard, so far known by the codename W555. After a short contest on the company's forums, the company came up with "EVGA Classified SR-2" for its name. SR stands for "super record" and 2 denoting the dual-socket design. The Classified SR-2 is a an entusiast-grade (read: overclocker friendly) implementation of the Tylersburg platform, supporting Intel socket LGA1366 processors with two QPI links (2P Xeon, etc.) As an addition, the board allows you to do something that's difficult on typical 2P server motherboards: it allows you to mix different models of Xeon processors, provided they're based on the same architecture, and series. For example, you can mix a Xeon 5520 with Xeon 5540. You can also mix a quad-core processor with a six-core processor, provided the quad-core part is based on the Westmere architecture (32 nm), not Nehalem (45 nm).

The board will also let you run a single 2P-capable processor in either sockets. DDR3 memory modules can be non-ECC or even ECC. 2P Xeon DRAM Multipliers / Uncore Multipliers are locked so you will only be able to use maximum 2:8 or 2:10 depending on segment of CPU. EVGA tells that the board supports 4-way SLI on its GTX 285 Classified VGA, but adds that a "future flagship GPU" also supports it. Could this be GeForce GTX 400 series having it as a standard feature? We have to wait and see. 4-way CrossFireX is supported.

Scythe Readies Susano and Yasya Cu CPU Coolers

Mar 4th, 2010 11:24 Discuss (37 Comments)

Scythe showed off prototypes of two of its creations for the season, the Scythe Susano and Yasya Cu CPU coolers. The Susano is one of Scythe's biggest CPU coolers. Its vast aluminum fin array covers the entire upper half of the average ATX motherboard. Its design involves a heatsink-turned CPU block, from which six copper heat pipes pass. These heat pipes convey heat to a large, roughly-square aluiminum fin array on which are latched four 120 mm fans. These blow air through the aluminum fin block, and onto several parts of the motherboard, including memory, northbridge and CPU VRM. The Yasya Cu is a slightly more in tune with the times. It is a copper-based variant of the Yasya CPU cooler. It uses the tried and tested tower design, and makes use of copper fins with a turbulent shape. Heat is conveyed to these fins using six copper heat pipes. Scythe did not give out a release date for these coolers.

Intel Expands Intel Atom Processor-Based Platform to SOHO Storage Devices

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Mar 4th, 2010 08:58 Discuss (0 Comments)

Intel releases its first storage-optimized Intel Atom processor-based platform for the growing home and small office/home office storage markets. New single- and dual-core chip options provide performance scalability and flexibility and run on Microsoft Windows Home Server and Linux operating systems. Leading storage vendors LaCie, LG Electronics, QNAP, Synology and Thecus plan products based on the new Intel Atom processor-based platform. Intel Atom processors also introduced for embedded applications are ideal for multiple market segments including print imaging, digital security surveillance and industrial.

The energy-efficient platform consists of the Intel Atom processor D410 single-core or D510 dual-core and the Intel 82801IR I/O Controller, and delivers the processing performance and input/output (I/O) connectivity required to meet the throughput demands of leading storage vendors such as LaCie, LG Electronics, QNAP, Synology and Thecus.

Home server and SOHO network-attached storage (NAS) devices based on the new Intel Atom processor- based platform act as centralized hubs that organize, manage, protect and share documents, photos, videos and music throughout the home and small office. This makes it possible to keep digital content safe and available anytime, anywhere.

ASRock Shows off Gulftown-based Demo at CeBIT

Mar 4th, 2010 08:07 Discuss (6 Comments)

A few weeks ahead of Intel's launch of its Core i7 980X "Gulftown" six-core processors, ASRock used the chip in a live-demo for one of its new motherboards. ASRock was probably trying to show off high performance numbers for its X58 Extreme3 motherboard using [perhaps] the most powerful LGA-1366 processor ever made, with a benchmark application best suited for it: Cinebench R10. Being a multi-threaded benchmark, the Core i7 980X scored 25,711 points. A quad-core Core i7 processor typically scores around the 20,000 mark. The exhibitors also confirmed that the 980X will be an Extreme Edition part with a clock speed of 3.33 GHz. As for the exhibit itself, ASRock pleaded innocent saying it had necessary permissions to display performance numbers of the 980X, well ahead of its launch. While tech forums are rife with unofficial benchmark scores of Gulftown, by forum members who test engineering samples with a level of anonymity, this is the first time a motherboard partner came all out with an official demo of the chip's capabilities. Intel's Core i7 980X will be released in a few weeks' time. ASRock's X58 Extreme3 is said to support the chip out of the box, though most socket LGA-1366 motherboards should be able to support it with a simple BIOS update.

Sparkle Announces GeForce GT 240 with Free 3D Vision Discoverer Bundle

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Mar 4th, 2010 07:39 Discuss (14 Comments)

SPARKLE Computer Co., Ltd., the professional VGA card manufacturer and supplier, today announced the full range of GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 OC Edition Series Graphics Cards, including SPARKLE GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 OC Edition Graphics Cards and Calibre X240/X240G Graphics Cards, which are bundled 3D Vision with Power Pack for free, helping mainstream users to surpass the demands of the digital world with NVIDIA PhysX and stereoscopic 3D supports.

Compared with ordinary GeForce GT 240 graphics cards on market, SPARKLE GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 OC Edition Series Graphics Cards and Calibre X240/X240G Graphics Cards are overclocked out of box. Extremely upgrade the performance and take enthusiasts DirectX 10 and DirectX 10.1 gaming beyond HD. With the power of the overclocked GPUs, it places gamers in the center of the action and experience true gaming cinema in extreme HD (2560x1600) resolutions-all enabled by the the SPARKLE GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 OC Edition Series Graphics Cards and Calibre X240/X240G Graphics Cards,and incredible performance in the latest games including Bioshock2, Alien VS Predator, and Dirt2. With the powerful OC features, the SPARKLE GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 OC Edition Series Graphics Cards and Calibre X240/X240G Graphics Cards tear through complex DirectX 10 and DirectX 10.1 environments and cinematic effects at blazing frame rates in extreme HD resolutions.

ZOTAC Announces Next-Generation ZBOX, Redefines Mini-PCs

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Mar 4th, 2010 05:38 Discuss (0 Comments)

ZOTAC International, the world's largest channel manufacturer, today redefines the mini-PC experience with a new generation of eco friendly small form factor platform powered by next-generation NVIDIA ION technology - the new ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 mini-PC. The new ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 mini-PC supercharges the eco friendly computing experience with premium graphics processing, complete high definition playback capabilities and a premium Windows 7 experience with Aero user interface.

Premium graphics processing power forms the heart of the ZOTAC ZBOX HD-ID11 mini-PC with a new Next-Generation NVIDIA ION graphics processor with 16 unified shaders and 512MB of DDR3 graphics memory complete with NVIDIA CUDA and NVIDIA PureVideo HD technologies for a superior eco friendly computing experience that goes well beyond simple web browsing.

G.Skill Shows off SandForce-powered Phoenix Series SSDs

Mar 4th, 2010 05:28 Discuss (14 Comments)

G.Skill showed off its newest line of solid state drives under the Phoenix series, at CeBIT. The SSDs come in capacities of 50 GB, 100 GB, and 200 GB, and in the 2.5" form-factor with SATA 3 Gb/s interface. Its USP is the SandForce SF-1200 SSD controller. With its MLC NAND chips, the controller can churn out transfer speeds of 200 MB/s read, and 141 MB/s write. When used with Windows 7 operating system, the SSDs offer TRIM support, a feature which uses idle time to erase deleted data which could otherwise consume many write cycles, also working towards reducing data fragmentation. The company will release these drives to the market soon.

Corsair Launches Force Series Solid-State Drives

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Mar 4th, 2010 05:06 Discuss (12 Comments)

Corsair, a worldwide leader in high-performance computer and flash memory products, today announced the Force Series of SSDs, providing outstanding SATA 3 Gb/s performance based on innovative SSD Processor technology from SandForce Inc.

By utilizing the state-of-the-art SandForce SF-1200 SSD processor combined with MLC flash memory, the Corsair Force Series of solid-state drives deliver outstanding performance figures of up to 280 MB/sec read and 260 MB/sec write. In addition, these drives feature class-leading random read/write performance. The highly innovative SandForce DuraClass Technology also delivers unparalleled write endurance and error correction features.

G.Skill Pushes DDR3 to 2500 MHz at CeBIT

Mar 4th, 2010 04:37 Discuss (14 Comments)

We dropped by the G.Skill booth and they are showing off a few systems with their memory in it. While they have seven different configurations to display, only three of them are out each day, so they are rotated around throughout the show. All of them are interesting, but some more than others. First off there is a dual channel kit running at 2500 MHz in combination with an Asus P55 board and Intel i7-860 CPU. This memory is just for show and will not be sold in retail. Then there is a high capacity kit with six modules running at 2000 MHz with CL6 on an Asus X58 board, while the last system is very interesting as well, with 1600 MHz memory and a set CAS latency of 5-8-5. We did not get pictures of their 24 GB kits up and running, as they were not on that day. G.Skill is also displaying their Phoenix Sandforce SF-1200 based SSD.

G.Skill ECO Kit 4 GB PC3-12800U CL7-8-7 Review

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G.Skill is offering a full range of P55 compatible memory kits, with the ECO being one of them. As the name implies, the memory aims to deliver the most performance while only requiring a mere 1.35V to run at 1600 MHz CL7-8-7.

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QNAP Expands NAS Line And Shows Off New Software

Mar 3rd, 2010 17:38 Discuss (0 Comments)

The guys from QNAP do not have too much new stuff, but are filling in the blanks so to speak. They are now offering a five bay TS-559 Pro NAS storage, which fits right in-between the four and six bay variants already available. On the software front we got a quick intro to their upcoming web interface for their TS-110 and 210 units. This interface allows you to stream movies, music and pictures over a web interface and even grant access to specific folders and content to users of your choice thanks to a built-in user management interface. This software update should be available by the end of the month. We also got a quick peek at their four and eight bay server products, which fit in a 1U or 2U rack and are intended to be used as embedded storage for VMWare environments. These are called TS-459U-RP and TS-859U-RP respectively.

Scythe Shows Off Case With Leather Front And New Cooler

Mar 3rd, 2010 17:23 Discuss (42 Comments)

Scythe is showing off numerous new cases, one of which has a spiffy leather front. While the chassis at CeBIT features a black patch of the material, we could see other colors happen (like pink for the ladies?). The chassis not yet ready for market, while the other enclosures which feature a clean look & feel are ready to go shortly. All of these are aimed at the mainstream market with very affordable price points.

MSI presents their AMD 8 Series chipset lineup, including Lucid Hydra

Mar 3rd, 2010 17:19 Discuss (10 Comments)

The clear highlight here seems to be the MSI 870A-GD60 Hydra. It comes with Lucid Logix's prominent Hydra feature, using a different chip than on the Big Bang Fuzion by the way. It promises to let you combine GPUs from NVIDIA and ATI in a CrossFire/SLI like fashion for increased performance. Even though it does not deliver the most amazing scaling numbers just yet we are told that the driver "improves weekly".

Mushkin adds SandForce SSD to their portfolio: Calypso

Mar 3rd, 2010 16:39 Discuss (4 Comments)

Like most other SSD manufacturers, Mushkin has added a SandForce based SSD to their lineup which promises to deliver leading performance at a better pricing than their existing products. In terms of capacities you will have a choice from 64 to 256 GB without exact pricing still unknown. As controller the SandForce SF-1200 is used, Mushkin is also working on a SF-1500 "enterprise" controller based drive, which mainly adds more IOPS to the write performance at the same 260 MB/s write speeds.

Thermaltake Launch Their First Overclocking CPU Cooler, Thermaltake Frio

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Mar 3rd, 2010 12:45 Discuss (33 Comments)

Thermaltake, leading DIY thermal solutions brand, launch their latest CPU air-cooler specifically designed for overclocking, the Thermaltake Frio. Its name is its mission, as Frio is the Spanish word for cool. With a maximum cooling capacity of up to 220W this high-end cooler is the ideal solution for overclockers and power-users alike. The universal socket support makes it compatible to all computer processors currently available on the market.

Unlike traditional up-side-down air flow designs, the Frio utilizes a tower side-flow design to optimize cooling performance. To attain maximum cooling performance, Thermaltake's Frio adopts 5 Φ8mm high-efficiency heat-pipes conducting heat from Nickel coated mirror base directly into the cooling tower which is made of 48 0.4mm thick specially designed aluminum fins to increase the overall thermal dissipation area. The preinstalled powerful 120mm OC VR fan can be manually adjusted between 1200RPM and 2500RPM according to differing user needs. An additional OC fan is already included in the package and can be installed to further maximize airflow under most stressful conditions.

Do Not Press F1 If Requested To Do So By A Website.

Polaris573

Mar 3rd, 2010 12:10 Discuss (51 Comments)

Microsoft is investigating a vulnerability in VBscript that occurs when a user presses "F1". The vulnerability makes use of an interaction between VBscript and the help files of Internet Explorer. Once "F1" is pressed malicious code can be executed in the security context of the logged in user. This security issue only applies to users of Windows 2000, Windows 2003 Server, and Windows XP; Windows Vista and Windows 7 users are not affected. There is no word yet from Microsoft on what would occur if malicious code was executed using the vulnerability.

Mushkin Enhanced Announces Ridgeback Heatsink based Memory Kits

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Mar 3rd, 2010 11:51 Discuss (10 Comments)

Mushkin Enhanced, a global leader in high-performance computer products, announced today the release of 'Ridgeback', a new heatsink designed for the gaming and enthusiast communities. The initial series of Ridgeback kits will offer DDR3-1600 performance for Intel's LGA1366 and LGA1156 platforms at two different latency levels, as well as a DDR2-1066 solution. In the near future, kits for AMD's AM3+ and other platforms will be available.

"The Ridgeback Project has been an exciting project for both myself and our marketing department. We've worked hard to develop this world-class memory cooling solution. Ridgeback will help ensure that modules work well in intense, high-labor scenarios and will also look elegant in many types of installations," said Brian Flood, director of product development.

Kingston Announces HyperX LoVo DDR3 Memory Kits

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Mar 3rd, 2010 10:29 Discuss (11 Comments)

Kingston Technology announced the release of the world's first ultra-low voltage memory running at 1.25 volts at 1600MHz. The new offering is part of the new Kingston 'LoVo' (low voltage) HyperX DDR3 High-Performance memory product line. The dual-channel kit (Kingston part #: KHX1866C9D3LK2/4GX) comes preprogrammed with two XMP-ready profiles: 1.25 volts at 1600MHz and 1.35 volts at 1866MHz. The latter profile is also a world's first for speed matching higher frequency with a lower voltage.

"Kingston is proud to lead the charge with memory for the new generation of energy efficient systems that yield higher performance," said Mark Tekunoff, senior technology manager, Kingston. "Energy-conscious consumers need to look no further for memory than the HyperX 'LoVo' line when they are assembling the components needed to achieve better PC power performance."

WD Announces New High Speed Solid State Drives

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Mar 3rd, 2010 10:21 Discuss (16 Comments)

WD today announced that the company is shipping its new high performance WD SiliconDrive N1x 2.5-inch solid state drive (SSD) family. The new SSDs feature fast read/write speeds in high capacities and are designed for embedded system OEM applications that require superior performance, high reliability and long product life. The single-level cell (SLC) -based WD SiliconDrive N1x SSDs are an ideal storage solution for a wide range of embedded system OEM applications in growing markets such as automotive and transportation, data center, communications infrastructure, video surveillance and industrial automation. The new WD SiliconDrive N1x family of products complements the recently announced multi-level cell (MLC) -based WD SiliconEdge Blue SSDs, which offer a cost-effective alternative for less-demanding OEM applications while still providing high read/write speeds and high random write IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second) performance.

WD SiliconDrive N1x SSD products feature a native SATA 3.0 gigabits per second (Gb/s) interface with target read speeds up to 240 megabytes per second (MB/s) and write transfer rates up to 140 MB/s in capacities up to 128 gigabytes (GB). WD SiliconDrive N1x SSDs deliver maximum drive endurance and high sustained sequential write speeds to satisfy the 24/7 operational requirements in critical OEM applications. The WD SiliconDrive N1x products also feature WD's innovative Speed Assurance technology for consistent read/write performance.

XFX Preps Radeon HD 5970 Black Edition 4GB Eyefinity6 Graphics Accelerator

Mar 3rd, 2010 08:52 Discuss (52 Comments)

It looks like Sapphire and ASUS will not be the only AMD board partners out with a custom design Radeon HD 5970 graphics accelerator that has higher clock speeds and twice the amount of memory. XFX seems just about ready with what it calls the XFX Radeon HD 5970 Black Edition 4GB. This limited edition graphics card borrows heavily from AMD's reference design, but adds some changes:

The leaf-blower is centrally located, with a GPU system on its either sides.
GPUs use higher clock speeds of 850 MHz (core), 1200 MHz (memory).
Twice the amount of memory, 2 GB per GPU, 4 GB total.
ATI Eyefinity6 display output configuration: 6 mini-DisplayPort connectors to support six physical displays (dongles may be included for DVI users).
Power is drawn from two 8-pin PCI-E power connectors.

XFX may manufacture upto 1500 pieces in all, and could price each piece around US $1000, with sales starting later this month.

AMD Platform Meets Lucid Hydra on MSI 870A-GD60 Hydra

Mar 3rd, 2010 08:11 Discuss (23 Comments)

MSI has undertaken a very interesting project: to use the Lucid Hydra chip on an AMD platform motherboard, its second design with Lucid Hydra. The 870A-GD60 Hydra is a socket AM3 motherboard based on the AMD 870 + SB850 chipset. The AMD 870 chipset succeeds the AMD 770, in being suited for single discrete-graphics setups. The chipset packs no PCI-Express external switching, and hence there is only one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 link it can give to a graphics card. MSI connected this link to a Hydra Engine chip, to give out two full-bandwidth PCI-Express 2.0 x16 links. "Why not simply use the 890FX?" could be a question for many, but its answer lies in Hydra's advantage over it: it allows you to pair two NVIDIA graphics cards, two ATI graphics cards, or even mix an NVIDIA and an ATI card in a mixed multi-GPU array, as has been demonstrated with MSI's P55 Big Bang Fuzion motherboard.

The AM3 socket is powered by a 10-phase DrMOS based VRM. The CPU connects to four DDR3 DIMM slots for dual-channel memory. It connects to the AMD 870 northbridge over the HyperTransport 3.0 interface. Its lone PCI-E 2.0 x16 port is taken up by the Hydra Engine chip located between the two PCI-E 2.0 x16 slots. Other expansion slots include three PCI-E x1, and one PCI. The SB850 southbridge gives out six internal SATA 6 Gb/s ports. Connectivity includes 8 channel HD audio with SPDIF connections, eSATA by an additional controller, FireWire, two USB 3.0 ports, and a number of USB 2.0 ports. The 870A-GD60 Hydra could be released late next month.

Dell Announces OptiPlex 980 Desktop PCs

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Mar 3rd, 2010 07:29 Discuss (4 Comments)

Dell announced today its most powerful business desktop yet, the new OptiPlex 980, combines superb management and an environmentally friendly design. The new OptiPlex 980 can deliver up to 35 percent greater performance than previous generation OptiPlex systems. The desktop can also lower energy costs with an energy-efficient design and environment-conscious features. New management features to enhance productivity include, virtual remote control capability with an optional Intel KVM (Keyboard, Video and Mouse) and simplified task management with Dell's Update Catalog for Microsoft Systems Center.

ASUS Readies M4A89TD PRO Motherboard

Mar 3rd, 2010 06:34 Discuss (18 Comments)

At its displays at the ongoing CeBIT event, ASUS surprised many with a pair of Crosshair IV Series motherboards showing a renewed interest at the very high-end of the AMD platform. Incidentally, the company is also preparing a mid-range motherboard based on the AMD 890FX chipset, the M4A89TD PRO. The new board builds entirely on what the chipset has to offer with a slight addition of a two-port USB 3.0 controller. The AM3 socket is powered by a 10-phase VRM, supporting 140W CPUs. It is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots with its own 2-phase VRM.

The 890FX chipset gives out two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 full-bandwidth slots, other expansion slots include an open-ended PCI-E 1.1 x4, a PCI-E x1, and two PCI slots. All six SATA 6 Gb/s ports the SB850 southbridge gives out are internal, an additional JMicron controller gives out IDE and eSATA. The board boasts of ASUS' "Core Unlocker" switch which simplifies unlocking disabled physical cores on some dual, triple, and quad-core chips. Other features include 7.1 channel audio, gigabit Ethernet, and USB 3.0 for connectivity. The M4A89TD PRO should be released around the time when AMD unveils its latest processors.

Biostar Readies TA890FXE Motherboard

Mar 3rd, 2010 06:22 Discuss (21 Comments)

Biostar is readying a mid-range motherboard in its T-Series lineup based on AMD's upcoming 890FX + SB850 chipset. The T-Series TA890FXE was pictured at the ongoing CeBIT event without its cooling assembly. It supports existing and upcoming socket AM3 processors, including Phenom II X6. The CPU is powered by a 5+1 phase VRM, supporting 140W processors. The 890FX chipset gives out four PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots supporting ATI CrossFireX technology, apart from two legacy PCI slots. The SB850 southbridge gives out six SATA 6 Gb/s ports, of which five are internal, probably one external. An additional storage controller by VIA drives the lone IDE connector. 7.1 channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet, and FireWire make for the rest of it. The TA890FXE is expected to be out later in April, when AMD unveils its latest processors.

ASUS Announces M4A89GTD PRO Series Motherboards, Feature CPU Core Unlocking Switch

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Mar 3rd, 2010 05:50 Discuss (12 Comments)

ASUS today launched the M4A89GTD PRO Series motherboard that delivers added core processing power by enabling the instant unlocking of latent AMD CPUs. Incorporating the latest AMD 890GX chipset with an advanced AMD graphics core, the M4A89GTD PRO Series also supports both ATI CrossFireX and Hybrid CrossFireX technologies. Combined with advanced rendering from the DX10.1 graphics API, the series offers spectacular visual output.

"By supporting both integrated and discrete graphics processing, the M4A89GTD PRO Series delivers enhanced graphics performance that will excite and impress both hardcore gamers and multimedia users," said Joe Hsieh, General Manager of ASUS Motherboard Business.

A-DATA Shows Off USB Plus, USB 3.0 Devices And SDXC Cards

Mar 3rd, 2010 03:36 Discuss (4 Comments)

We dropped by A-DATA booth and did see a few interesting new products. First off, there are two new USB flash drives, the N909 with a USB Plus port and the N005 with USB 3.0. The former is a special USB connector with the possibility to be used on eSATA as well. There is also an SSD with SATA 3 and a micro USB 3.0 connector present.

A-DATA is also displaying SDXC cards, just in time as the Canon 550D will be supporting the new format.

Patriot Shows off So Called Fastest System on The Planet

Mar 2nd, 2010 18:41 Discuss (43 Comments)

The guys at patriot have an interesting demo up and running. They managed to build the worlds fastest PC, using five LSI controllers to connect forty SSDs to them. The system manages a sustained 155,000 IOPS/s This may not give you and idea about the actual speed, but we were given a great example. Ripping a Blu-Ray takes 2-3 hours on a good PC. It takes a mere 0.9 seconds on this one. Yes, less than "one Mississippi". For all of you wanting to build a system like this, be prepared to spend around 60,000 US Dollars on it.

Arctic Cooling has HD 5970 cooler ready, working on Fermi

Mar 2nd, 2010 18:20 Discuss (8 Comments)

Arctic Cooling has a long history of making excellent aftermarket coolers for AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards. Their latest innovation is the triple slot Accelero Xtreme 5970 which supports AMD's dual-GPU HD 5970 cards. Sapphire has chosen to use this very cooling solution for their HD 5970 OC 4 GB flagship, of course the cooler will be available in retail as well.

PowerColor is working on HD 5770 Eyefinity 5 card

Mar 2nd, 2010 18:03 Discuss (17 Comments)

At this year's CeBIT PowerColor is the first manufacturer to show a custom designed Eyefinity card. Their HD 5770 Eyefinity 5, yes Eyefinity 5, not six, lets you connect up to five displays in Eyefinity mode. In order to accomodate that many outputs, the card will use DisplayPort connectivity, just like AMD's HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 card. The number five, is due to only five available TMDS links on the HD 5770 (Juniper) whereas the Cypress ASIC has six links.

SteelSeries Also Introduces The 7H Headset

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Mar 2nd, 2010 16:38 Discuss (10 Comments)

Kicking off CeBIT 2010 in Hanover Germany, SteelSeries, the leading manufacturer of gaming peripherals and accessories, introduced the new high-end SteelSeries 7H headset. Designed and built for competitive gamers, the SteelSeries 7H presents a superior soundscape in an exclusive design that travels well and offers two ear-cup choices, hear-through cloth and noise dampening leather.

The SteelSeries 7H headset features 50mm drivers in the ear-cups which fully cover the ear and delivers a clean soundscape of high, low and mid tones from background, mood setting sounds in MMO games to 3D positional alerts in FPS games. The closed-type headset features superior passive noise reduction, specifically developed in cooperation with competitive gamers for use at loud tournaments and LAN-events. The SteelSeries 7H additionally comes with two interchangeable ear-cushions that offer the option of leather cushions with noise dampening foam or hear-through cloth covered foam.

SteelSeries Introduces New 6Gv2 Mechanical Keyboard

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Mar 2nd, 2010 16:27 Discuss (14 Comments)

SteelSeries, the leading manufacturer of gaming peripherals and accessories, today, during CeBIT in Hanover, Germany, introduced the SteelSeries 6Gv2 keyboard. Designed with 18-karat gold-plated mechanical switches, the keyboard offers quicker reaction times and advanced key combinations for more Actions Per Minute and a lifetime more than 10 times that of conventional keyboards.

Like the SteelSeries 7G, the new keyboard utilizes a powerful buffer-system created specifically for gaming, supporting as many simultaneous key presses as there are keys on the keyboard. The "anti-ghosting" feature allows users in first person shooter games to move, crouch, aim, fire and even check the scoreboard, simultaneously. The SteelSeries G product line is the only series of keyboards on the market that allows this type of functionality all at once.

GeForce GTX 480 PCB and Cooling Assembly Pictured

Mar 2nd, 2010 15:46 Discuss (93 Comments)

Sources wanting anonymity sent these pictures of PCB and cooling assembly to sections of the media. The PCB is that of the GeForce GTX 480, and is NVIDIA's reference design. It gives away a fair amount of information about the card that has created quite some hype over the months, which is slated for release on March 26. To begin with, the GF100 GPU on which GTX 480 is based, uses essentially the same type of package as the GT200 and G80. To help cool the large die (with a 3 billion-strong transistor count), an integrated heatspreader (IHS) is used. However, unlike with the G80 and GT200 (past two generations of extreme performance GPUs from NVIDIA), the display logic is integrated into the GPU package, instead of being spun off into NVIO processors.

With 12 memory chips on board, the GPU connects to them over a 384-bit wide memory interface. The reference design board is expected to have 1536 MB (1.5 GB) of memory on it. There's also an unusual amount of simplicity to the board design and choice of components. The GPU is powered by a 6-phase vGPU circuit using more standard DPAK MOSFETs. There is a 2-phase vMem circuit. With wide open spaces in the PCB, NVIDIA actually made two cutouts to help the blower's air intake.

Super Talent Introduces Encrypted USB 3.0 SuperCrypt Drive

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Mar 2nd, 2010 13:18 Discuss (3 Comments)

Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, today announced the new USB 3.0 SuperCrypt drive which features outstanding performance and supports AES hardware encryption. Available in 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, 128GB and 256GB capacities, this new drive supports USB 3.0 speeds of up to 240MB/s. Downloading a 600MB movie takes a mere 7 seconds with this new drive.

Measuring 95 x 34 x 15.4 mm, the new SuperCrypt Drive requires no separate cable and is fully backward compatible with USB 2.0 ports, at USB 2.0 speeds. Super Talent offers two AES encryption options, both of which include the STT encryption utility for password control: the SuperCrypt drive features 128-bit ECB encryption, while the SuperCrypt Pro features 256-bit XTS encryption for very robust security. The USB 3.0 SuperCrypt drive will be available in March from Super Talent resellers worldwide. Interested parties can register here for USB 3.0 product availability updates.

ASUS ROG Ares Graphics Card Benched

Mar 2nd, 2010 10:08 Discuss (35 Comments)

Here are some of the first pictures of a "living, breathing" ASUS ROG Ares graphics accelerator. This ASUS' latest creation packs two AMD Cypress GPUs running at 850 MHz (core), 1200 MHz (memory), with twice the amount of memory (2 GB per GPU, 4 GB total). It also packs an enthusiast-grade voltage circuitry that gives it an amount of overclocking headroom, as well as a complex cooling assembly.

At its CeBIT exhibit, ASUS also showed off the card's 3DMark Vantage score in the Extreme preset. The card secured a score of X14416, compared to a typical score of the reference Radeon HD 5970 to be around the X11000 mark. The bench was driven by an Intel Core i7 965 XE processor, ASUS Rampage II Extreme motherboard, and 6 GB of triple-channel memory. The ROG Ares should be out in a few weeks time. Its price and availability remain a mystery.

ASUS ROG Crosshair IV Formula and Extreme Motherboards Pictured

Mar 2nd, 2010 08:36 Discuss (38 Comments)

ASUS makes a return to the higher-end of the AMD platform with two motherboards in its elite Republic of Gamers (ROG) series, with the Crosshair IV Formula and Crosshair IV Extreme. Both motherboards are based on the AMD 890FX + SB850 chipset, and support socket AM3 processors. While the Crosshair IV Formula targets high-end gaming builds, the Crosshair IV Extreme goes all out to woo overclockers. The Crosshair IV Formula, to begin with, has six expansion slots, of which four are PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (operating at x8 when all are populated, or x16, NC, x16, NC), and two PCI slots. The SB850 southbridge gives out six SATA 6 Gb/s ports, while an additional controller gives out two 3 Gb/s ports (one being eSATA). The CPU is powered by a 10+2 phase VRM, with two phase memory power. Connectivity includes 8+2 channel audio with SPDIF connectivity, gigabit Ethernet, FireWire, eSATA, two USB 3.0 ports, and a number of USB 2.0 ports. The board supports the iROG feature, along with a host of other overclocker-friendly features.

The Crosshair IV Extreme, on the other hand, is probably the most complex motherboard for the AMD platform. Apart from overclocker-friendly features of the C-4 Formula, C-4 Extreme adds a wide range of electrical enhancements that include better power conditioning with Super ML capacitors, PWM circuitry, voltage measure points, ProbeIT feature, PCI-Express electrical control switches, iROG Bluetooth device control, physically redundant BIOS ROM chips, and a number of other features. The board itself is closer to being EATX sized. There are four PCI-Express x16 slots here too, but with 1U spacing between them. An open-ended PCI-Express 1.1 x4 and PCI make for the other slots. There are six SATA 6 Gb/s ports here, too, with additional SATA 3 Gb/s controllers, and connectivity largely identical to that of the C-4 Formula. We presume ASUS will release these two in late April, around the time when AMD rolls out its Phenom II X6 processors. Pictured in order (below) are the C-4 Formula and C-4 Extreme.

Images Courtesy: Tweakers.net, Lab501.ro

NVIDIA GeForce 196.75 WHQL Drivers Released

Mar 2nd, 2010 07:53 Discuss (38 Comments)

NVIDIA released version 196.75 of its GeForce driver suite. The drivers are WHQL signed. It adds support for new NVIDIA GPUs, notably the ION 2 GPU, apart from GeForce 300 series mobile GPUs, and the existing lineup of GeForce GPUs, 6-series and above. GeForce 196.75 WHQL also packs the updated 9.10.0129 PhysX system software, and an updated version 1.0.9.1 driver for NVIDIA GPUs with embedded HD audio. Apart from these there are application specific performance increments:

Up to 13% performance increase in Crysis: Warhead with a single GPU
Up to 30% performance increase in Crysis: Warhead with SLI technology
Up to 13% performance increase in H.A.W.X with single GPU
Up to 15% performance increase in H.A.W.X with SLI technology
Up to 30% performance increase in Left 4 Dead with single GPU
Up to 28% performance increase in Left 4 Dead with SLI technology

SLI profiles are added for Assassin Creed II, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Command and Conquer 4: Tiberium Twilight, Grand Theft Auto IV: Episodes from Liberty City, Mass Effect 2, Napoleon: Total War, and Zombie Driver. SLI support is improved further for World of Warcraft, and Unigine. It adds Ambient Occlusion support for Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, Need for Speed: Shift, Resident Evil 5, RUSE, and Street Fighter IV. AA issue for Mass Effect 2 is fixed with an AA override added. A large number of other bug fixes were included, and issues resolved. Refer to the Release Notes documents (for Windows 7/Vista, Windows XP), for more information.</br>

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 196.75 WHQL

VIA Intros VIA ART-3000 Rugged Embedded Box PC

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Mar 2nd, 2010 07:30 Discuss (0 Comments)

VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today announced the VIA ART-3000, a complete, fanless and ruggedized embedded box system based on the unique I/O-rich Em-ITX form factor, offering the ideal solution for a variety of industrial applications.

Available as a complete system including drives and memory, the fanless VIA ART-3000 combines a number of unique features including diskless booting, excellent vibration and shock resistance, dual Gigabit networking and dual LVDS video support. Ruthlessly low power consumption means the VIA ART-3000 can also support fanless configurations with no moving parts making it ideal for ultra stable, mission critical implementations.

MSI Unveils GX640, GX740 Gaming Notebooks

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Mar 2nd, 2010 07:21 Discuss (3 Comments)

MSI's GX740 and GX640 gaming notebooks come equipped with Intel's newest Core i5 processor with the ATI Radeon HD5870 (GX740) and HD5850 (GX640) discrete graphics cards (1GB GDDR5 VRAM) for the ultimate gaming experience. Taipei-The GX640 and GX740, the latest, greatest members of MSI G-Series, are now available on the market. They boast Intel's newest Core i5 processor with the most advanced ATI Radeon HD5870 (GX740) and HD5850 (GX640) discrete graphics cards with 1GB GDDR5 VRAM and SRS Premium Sound. Unleash your gaming potential with their superior speed, smooth visuals, and gamer keyboards.

MSI Director of Marketing Sam Chern points out that the GX640 and GX740 are MSI's newest gaming notebooks. To provide gamers with the fastest processing performance and best display effects available, MSI incorporated Intel's latest Core i5 processor with ATI Radeon discrete graphics cards with 1GB GDDR5 memory, providing three times the performance of conventional display memory, while using less power. Gaming notebooks don't come any better.

Xigmatek Rolls Out Asgard II Case

Mar 2nd, 2010 07:12 Discuss (4 Comments)

Xigmatek released its new value ATX mid-tower, the Asgard II. The case is available in all-black, with a dash or silver, or with a dash of orange. The case measures 185 x 408 x 475 mm (7.28 x 16.06 x 18.7 inches), and weights 5.62 kg (12.38 lbs). It has four 5.25" and one 3.5" exposed drive bays with perforated metal covers. The front bezel has a brushed-metallic surface. There are six internal 3.5" bays. All bays and expansion slots feature tool-free installation. The motherboard tray has an opening at the CPU socket area to help handing certain kinds of coolers. While the side-panel can mount two 120 mm fans, there's provision for one in the front, and one in the rear. The PSU is top-mounted. The Asgard II is priced at 32.90 EUR, it will be available from later this month.

More pictures after the break.

Sapphire HD 5970 OC 4 GB Graphics Card Pictured

Mar 2nd, 2010 06:46 Discuss (24 Comments)

At the ongoing CeBIT event, Sapphire is showing off what it claims will be the fastest graphics card in the market: the Sapphire HD 5970 OC 4 GB. This non-reference design Radeon HD 5970 dual-GPU graphics card sports two full-featured AMD Cypress GPUs, higher clock speeds, and twice the amount of memory. What is also ends up showing off is that Arctic Cooling seems to be ready with a cooler for the Radeon HD 5970.

Sapphire's new card uses a blue-colored PCB, a custom-designed cooling assembly by Arctic Cooling, clock speeds of 850 MHz (core) and 1200 MHz (memory), against reference speeds of 725/1000 MHz, 2 GB of GDDR5 memory per GPU (4 GB on card), and being able to draw power from two 8-pin power connectors. With the cooling assembly, the card is three slots thick. It has two DVI-D connectors, and one mini-DP connector. This card competes with a similar graphics card by ASUS in the works, called the ROG Ares dual-HD 5870. Its pricing and availability are not known.

GeForce GTX 470 Graphics Card Pictured

Mar 2nd, 2010 06:26 Discuss (38 Comments)

A picture of what NVIDIA's reference design for its next-gen performance graphics card, the GeForce GTX 470, could look like made it to sections of the media. The card is characteristically shorter than the GTX 480 reference design card spotted earlier. The GeForce GTX 470 will be the slightly more affordable part in the series. It is based on NVIDIA's new GF100 graphics core. The GTX 470 has 448 CUDA cores (shader cores), and has a 320-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. Board partners will sell these cards with 1280 MB of memory. The back of the card shows tracks for 10 memory chips (confirming the 320-bit wide memory interface), and interestingly, also lacks traces for an external display IO processor (like the NVIO2 processor on GT200 based accelerators), cutting down the overall cost of manufacturing. The card draws power from two 6-pin power connectors, and has two SLI fingers for 3-way SLI support. Its connectivity includes two DVI-D, and HDMI.

MSI Ready with 890FXA-GD70 Motherboard

Mar 2nd, 2010 06:10 Discuss (5 Comments)

MSI seems to have finalized design of its first motherboard based on the AMD 890FX chipset, the 890FXA-GD70. A possible prototype of this, then called the 890FX-GD70, was pictured back in early December, 2009. The 890FXA-GD70 has five PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots in all. Their electrical configuration, when all are populated, could be x8, x8, x8, x8, 1.1 x4, or x16, NC, x16, NC, 1.1 x4, supporting ATI CrossFireX. A PCI-E x1 and PCI make for the other two expansion slots. A large rectangular heatsink cools both the AMD 890FX chipset, and the 8-phase VRM, while a heat pipe connects this to the heatsink over the SB850 southbridge chip. The CPU is connected to four DDR3 memory slots with one-sided retention clips that don't come in the way of graphics cards in the first slot.

The SB850 gives out six SATA 6 Gb/s ports with RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5, 10, JBOD support, while a JMicron made controller gives out an additional SATA 3 Gb/s port, an IDE connector, and possibly an eSATA connector. Connectivity options include 8+2 channel HD audio with optical and coaxial SPDIF connections, two gigabit Ethernet interfaces, two USB 3.0 ports (and a number of USB 2.0 ports), FireWire, and eSATA. This motherboard is ready for upcoming Phenom II X6 and Phenom II X4 processors, apart from existing processors in the AM3 package. It should be released in time for the six-core chips, late April.

AMD Unveils Versatile AMD 890GX Chipset

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Mar 2nd, 2010 05:45 Discuss (19 Comments)

AMD and its motherboard partners today unleashed ATI Radeon HD 4290 Graphics with the AMD 890GX Chipset, a versatile, affordable and exceptionally energy efficient solution for an incredible, high definition visual computing experience.

The AMD 890GX chipset redefines the way you play with versatile graphics configurations, including DirectX 10.1 graphics on the motherboard and support for up to two high-performance ATI Radeon Premium Graphics cards with ATI CrossFireX technology. The same AMD 890GX motherboard which can be used to build an efficient and slim home theater PC using the integrated ATI Radeon HD 4290 Graphics, can be augmented with ATI Radeon HD 5450 Graphics for a dual-graphics performance preview, or upgraded to a gaming powerhouse with ATI Radeon HD 5870 Graphics and the visual realism of DirectX 11.

Corsair Launches Air Series A70 and A50 High-Performance CPU Coolers

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Mar 2nd, 2010 05:37 Discuss (11 Comments)

Corsair, a worldwide leader in high-performance computer and flash memory products, announces the Corsair Cooling Air Series A70 and A50 high-performance CPU coolers, the newest additions to Corsair's award-winning range of cooling solutions.

The Corsair Cooling Air Series A70 has been designed to offer exceptional cooling performance for enthusiasts who demand state-of-the-art CPU temperature management. The Air Series A70 is a great choice for enthusiasts looking to squeeze every last megahertz of performance out of their high-end Intel and AMD processors, without sacrificing low noise levels.

The Corsair Cooling Air Series A50 is ideal for PC builders and hobbyists who want to upgrade from the stock Intel and AMD coolers. The Air Series A50 delivers significantly lower CPU temperatures than stock coolers, resulting in a cooler, quieter, and more reliable PC, with increased overclocking headroom.

Corsair Launches High Capacity, High Speed Voyager GTR Flash Drives

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Mar 2nd, 2010 05:28 Discuss (2 Comments)

Corsair, a worldwide leader in high-performance computer memory, power supplies and flash memory products, including solid-state drives, today announced the Flash Voyager GTR family of USB flash drives. These USB flash drives feature outstanding speed in a variety of densities.

The quad-channel architecture employed by the Flash Voyager GTR series delivers read speeds up to 34MB/s and write speeds up to 28MB/s, approaching the maximum transfer rates supported by the USB 2.0 interface. The outstanding performance numbers translate into genuine, real-world results. In the Corsair Labs, using a typical Windows 7-based PC, the Flash Voyager GTR 128GB was tested head-to-head against a 128GB USB drive from one of the world's largest suppliers of UFDs. For the first test, a folder containing 8,125 MP3 files was copied to the Flash Voyager GTR in only 39 minutes, while the competitor took over 66 minutes to complete the same task. The second test copied a documents folder containing 37,000 small DOC files, which took just 6 minutes on the Flash Voyager GTR versus more than 37 minutes on the competitor's USB flash drive. Details of this testing can be found here.

Vantec Expands SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Product Line

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Mar 2nd, 2010 05:20 Discuss (1 Comment)

Vantec Thermal Technologies, a worldwide leader specializing in computer accessories announces the expansion of the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 product lineup. Featuring the NexStar SuperSpeed Hard Drive Dock, available in both black and white and the NexStar SATA to USB 3.0 Adapter.

The NexStar Hard Drive Dock gives users a quick and easy way to access their SATA hard drives. By simply sliding either a 2.5" or 3.5" into the dock, users can begin reading and writing data from the attached hard drive. On the other hand, the NexStar SATA to USB 3.0 Adapter is extremely portable and is the perfect tool for a technician to have in their bag.

Thecus N2200 Review

Review NAS

The N2200 is an entry level dual bay NAS. It has a fairly long list of features without making it overly complex to configure, plus it comes at a low price. Since Thecus seems confident about the N2200 we took a closer look at it to see if this is justified.

Read Review

WD Introduces New My Passport Studio Portable HDDs

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Mar 1st, 2010 10:45 Discuss (0 Comments)

WD, the world's leader in external storage solutions, today introduced its new My Passport Studio portable drives featuring the super-fast FireWire 800 interface and a customizable e-label that's always visible, even when the drive is unplugged. Sporting a sleek and stylish design, the new high-performance My Passport Studio drives are formatted for Mac computers, compatible with Apple TimeMachine software, and feature automatic and continuous backup with WD SmartWare software, and 256-bit hardware-based encryption. Available now at select retailers and shopwd.com, the new My Passport Studio drives are offered in capacities of 320 GB, 500 GB and 640 GB.

WD's My Passport Studio drives are designed for creative professionals and Mac enthusiasts. Their production and use of many large files require the fast transfers from computer to My Passport Studio drives that FireWire 800 provides. Professionals such as photographers also benefit from the e-labeling system to effectively organize their work.

Walton Chaintech Unveils Smallest USB 3.0 Device: 64 GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive

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Mar 1st, 2010 10:00 Discuss (6 Comments)

The proliferation of large-capacity external devices means they are being utilized in increasingly frequent manners for the backup of large files and high quality videos. However, users often have a long wait when they transfer large files of several Gigabytes. The primary cause for this is that the USB 2.0 interface is limited by its transmission speed of 480 Mbps. Thus, USB 3.0 devices were developed that possess ten times the transmission speed of the previous interface, winning consumer admiration. In order to fulfill consumer demands, Walton Chaintech, a world-renowned memory and storage device manufacturer, has officially launched a product that supports USB 3.0 standards today; the Astro Drive Series A101. Not only is it fully compliant with all USB 3.0 specifications, it is also the smallest USB 3.0 product available currently. A combination of all of these factors, in addition to its dual color design in red and silver, makes this a highly functional product that fulfills a great deal of anticipation.

HP Unveils New Commercial Notebook PCs

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Mar 1st, 2010 07:52 Discuss (2 Comments)

Today, HP introduced its first multitouch-enabled tablet for business users as well as notebook PCs tailored for both enterprise and small and midsize businesses (SMBs). The HP EliteBook 2740p starts at 1.73kg and includes a 12.1-inch diagonal LED display or optional outdoor-view display with less reflection and a higher contrast for easier viewing in natural light. The touchscreen option allows users to get work done more intuitively and faster based on their choice of input methods. Multitouch gestures, finger taps and swipes across the screen allow users to navigate through applications and menus, as well provide access to information and websites.

The HP EliteBook 2740p offers a variety of battery solutions for lightweight configurations, including a six-cell li-ion prismatic battery, which provides up to 5 hours of uptime, and an optional HP 2700 Ultra-Slim Battery that provides up to 11 hours when combined with the standard battery.

Intel Tones Down Stock CPU Cooler for LGA 775 Processors Further

Mar 1st, 2010 06:22 Discuss (46 Comments)

Intel has come up with a new design for its Fan Heat-sink Assembly (FHSA) it bundles with some (presumably dual-core) boxed socket LGA-775 processors. The new design aims at making it slightly more cost-effective by reducing the metal content, and trying to compensate with a more turbulent airflow design. While the forked aluminum fins in the old design project spirally from the base, in the new design they project radially. The CPU contact base is slightly smaller, and leveled to the fins. Changes as listed by Intel are as follows:

A slightly smaller impeller (fan speed is increased because of this but noise output stays the same)
Fan shroud hub diameter increased (from 34mm to 40mm) due to modifications to fan electronics
Heatsink fins will be straight (as opposed to curved as they are now)
The heatsink will be a bit more compact (height decreased from 18.9 mm to 18.47mm)

The new FHSA should be bundled with the latest stocks of Intel processors in the LGA 775 package. They should just about keep the processors running within recommended temperatures at stock clock speeds.

MSI Unveils 890GXM-G65 Micro-ATX Mainboard

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Mar 1st, 2010 06:08 Discuss (13 Comments)

Leading mainboard and graphics card maker, MSI, launches their brand new 890GXM-G65 mainboard using the AMD 890GX chipset to fulfill the increasing demand for perfect Home Theatre Personal Computers (HTPC). In addition to tailoring the latest AMD Phenom II processors, the 890GXM-G65 provides full support for the DirectX 10.1 and UVD 2.0 multimedia standards to significantly enhance high-definition audio and video effects. Along with a wide variety of output interfaces, exclusive MSI technology, and native SATA 6Gb/s and USB3.0 interfaces, the AMD 890GXM-G65 allows users to build a quality HTPC combining high performance and high stability.

MSI has specifically equipped the AMD 800 Series with the latest OC Genie Lite easy-overclocking technology to meet the multimedia requirements of power users. By launching the BIOS Setup, consumers can use the OC Genie Lite to automatically adjust the CPU and IGP clock to enhance overall performance to 15%* in order to experience and enjoy optimal performance at your fingertips with neither special computer knowledge nor additional expense.

Gigabyte Announces GA-890GPA-UD3H Motherboard, Packs AMD 890GX Chipset

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Mar 1st, 2010 06:00 Discuss (18 Comments)

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co., Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards and other computing hardware solutions today proudly launched their latest AMD AM3 Socket GA-890GPA-UD3H motherboard, delivering loads of performance enhancing bandwidth for applications such as high end gaming and high speed data transfer on systems featuring new AMD 6 core CPUs.

The first motherboard featuring the AMD 890GX chipset paired with the all new SB850 South Bridge, the GIGABYTE GA-890GPA-UD3H offers the industry's first native support for Serial ATA 6Gbps for up to 6 devices. The AMD SB850 also offers the industry's first Serial ATA 6 Gbps RAID support, allowing users to configure RAID 0,1,5 and 10 for maximum data performance or enhanced data backup. Also equipped with GIGABYTE 3x USB Power Boost and USB 3.0 support by utilizing the industry-leading NEC controller, the GIGABYTE GA-890GPA-UD3H ensures users are ready to take advantage the next wave of high speed data transfer and storage technologies.

TechPowerUp Radeon BIOS Editor (RBE) 1.25 Released

Mar 1st, 2010 05:54 Discuss (2 Comments)

TechPowerUp released the latest version of its Radeon BIOS Editor (RBE). Version 1.25 packs support for components of a host of new ATI Radeon graphics processors, notably belonging to the new Radeon HD 5000 series. Several improvements to the application's stability and reliability were made, including a more capable built-in hex editor search, memory interface detection, and feature to enable RivaTuner versions v2.25 and above to cooperate with Radeon HD 5000 series GPUs.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp Radeon BIOS Editor (RBE) ver. 1.25

A detailed list of changes by the Author are as follows:

ECS Announces A890GXM Series Motherboards

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Mar 1st, 2010 05:44 Discuss (8 Comments)

Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) launches the latest AMD 890GX chipsets based motherboard family supporting AMD next generation 6-Core CPU with the best visual experience for users. ECS A890GXM-AU and A890GXM-A are powered by ATI Radeon HD 4290 IGP with "ECS 4most Display Design" providing HDMI, DisplayPort, DVI and D-Sub connectors on the rear panel providing great convenience to meet both home entertainment and gaming requirement. For home entertainment, A890GXM-AU and A890GXM-A motherboards bring Full HD 1080P video experience.

For gamers, A890GXM-AU and A890GXM-A support Microsoft DirectX 10.1 with stunning 3D effects. The on-board SidePort DDR3 1333 memory is a great plus on graphics for gamers. It enhances the gaming experience by ATI Hybrid Graphics technology with no doubt. In addition, A890GXM-AU and A890GXM-A assist with ATI CrossFireX technology giving hardcore gamers magnified gaming performance.

Team to Announce Xtreem LV DDR3 2400 at CeBIT 2010

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Mar 1st, 2010 05:35 Discuss (5 Comments)

Team Group Inc will be announcing at CeBIT 2010 the world-first limited edition overclocking memory Xtreem LV DDR3 2400 to set again a new barrier for overclocking memory. Team not only enhances the bandwidth of the module to 19,200MB/sec, but also sets users at the tip of the pyramid as the target customer group. The Xtreem LV DDR3 2400 will be delivered in limited edition and considered as the most stunning star product that Team displays at CeBIT 2010.

Based on the memory architecture evolution on Intel Core i7 and Core i5, Team raises the frequency of the Xtreem LV DDR3 by 20% from 2000MHz to 2400MHz. Also, by continuing the high frequency and low latency tradition of the Xtreem LV memory, the Xtreem LV DDR3 2400 can fully display the configuration 9-10-10-30 (tCL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS) at a low operating voltage at 1.6V without sacrificing either performance or stability. All these have witnessed the extraordinary R&D capacity and capability of Team. In addition to the unchanged genuine chip policy, Team ensures chip quality with the exclusive sorting technology to screen chips. In order to further ensure the optimal performance and flawless quality of the Xtreem LV DDR3 2400, Team applies the 24-hour burn-in test and industry-approved MemTest software to perform the OQC inspection of all modules before shipping to assure the stability and exceptional performance of every Xtreem LV DDR3 2400.

Team Unveils Team Xtreem-S1 SSD, Challenges Industry Benchmark

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Mar 1st, 2010 05:30 Discuss (2 Comments)

Fast, stable and lightweight, the solid state disk (SSD) has successfully replaced conventional mechanical hard drives to become the product with the most potential in 2010. After the great market success of the Xtreem-G1 SSD last year, Team Group Inc has launched technological cooperation with the US-based SSD pioneer Sandforce to introduce the faster and more reliable Xtreem-S1 SSD tailored for power users and will display it for the first time at CeBIT 2010.

In addition to continuing the absolute silence, light weight, low power consumption and shock resistance of the Xtreem-G1 SSD, the Xtreem-S1 SSD is equipped with the Sandforce processor, the fastest SSD solution in the industry, to fully exploit the extremes of the cost and performance MLC chip and thereby enhance the read/write speed of the Xtreem-S1 SSD. Besides delivering a reading speed of 270MB/sec and a writing speed of 260MB/s, which is 10 times faster than ordinary IDE hard drives (taking 1 second to accomplish tasks that used to be done in 10 seconds), the Xtreem-S1 SSD is 2 times faster than ordinary SSDs, making it the world's fastest SSD! Also, it supports SMART and the US AES-128 encryption specifications to provide real-time SSD health diagnostics and safeguard important data for users.